Can a regular citizen place a cop under citizen’s arrest, subdue him, handcuff him and take him to the station if it is in an appropriate situation?
Theoretically yes, but good luck trying it in practice.
You could try…
I would imagine that if the officer is in uniform that it wouldn’t work, and you’d find yourself on the wrong side of his firearm.
I’ve always heard that the big flaw in citizen’s arrests was that if for any reason the charges could not stick, the arrester was liable to the same penalties for false arrest as any policeman or police department and that your average shlub was likely to just charge in like a bull in a china shop with a citizen’s arrest witout really thinking it through.
There’s a column by Cecil on citizen’s arrest that doesn’t appear to be in the new archive. In general, you can attempt to detain someone but if they don’t comply willingly things get more complex quickly.
And, of course, the citizen you’re attempting to arrest, whether a cop or not, has an equal right to arrest you, for common assault, whatever.
In the end it could descend into a brawl as each tries to apprehend the other. Then you’d both be arrested and hauled off to the hoosegow. 
Bit of a hijack, but I have seen (on Cops) officers escort a victim to a handcuffed suspect in the back of a cruiser and instruct him or her to say that they are placing the suspect under citizen’s arrest. What is the purpose of this?
Thanks,
Rob
Most likely, you’d be arrested and charged with obstructing a police officer in the performance of his duties.
My late husband “detained” a boyfriend of my daughter’s once. The BF had hit her, giving her a black eye. My husband tracked him down and held him (by the arms) until the police arrived. The cop told him “You’re lucky that’s all you did. If you had hit the kid, we’d be arresting both of you.”
Back in the 50’s, my stepdad followed a driver who was speeding and almost caused an accident. When the driver parked, stepdad reached in and pulled the keys. We found a pay phone and called the cops.
I want to say I’ve seen some episodes of Cops where ordinary citizens had a wrongdoer under their control, but I’m just not sure.
You go first – come back and tell us how it worked out.
I’ve seen that too.
I think it was because in that situation the cops had not witnessed the crime, and there was little evidence to show that it had happened, so they wanted the citizen rather than them to be the one making the arrest & charges.
But I don’t really understand it either. Most crimes are not witnessed by cops, but they make arrests all the time.
I think it would be pretty hard to subdue/cuff/and bring a cop into the station… not that they are super-human and can’t be physically controled like anyone else or anything, just that they are usually armed and definately won’t go quietly. They will radio for back up if they notice you’re acting suspicious or aggresive towards them… or they’ll hit their panic alarm or something and the whole area will be swarming with his buddies in a few minutes. Then the following would happen:
However, they original question still hasn’t been answered - is it illegal to arrest a cop and haul him in assuming he did indeed break the law and there is evidence of it? What would happen later in court if you and a buddy jumped and tied up “officer gone-bad” after catching him beating up a prostitute he’d been pimping on the side at the local motel? I mean some cops definately do engage in illegal activity… but is there some law that prevents regular citizens from stopping them… do the departments themselves have to go after them?
Trying to take down a police officer under such circumstances would IMHO be suicide unless you have armed friends. If you found a cop participating in an illegal activity your only prudent course of action is to make good notes, and go to a police station and ask to speak to a supervisory officer or internal affairs if it is a large enough department.
:smack: Apologies for skimming the OP and blathering about something entirely different. And it wasn’t even a long OP!
In most jurisdictions, police officers need to witness a misdemeanor in order to arrest someone for committing it. The police need a citizen’s arrest (or a sworn statement) in order to make the arrest.
For a felony, they only need probable cause to believe the crime has been committed.
The common law recognized a citizen’s right to use whatever degree of force – up to deadly force – against a policeman arresting him without probable cause and/or a valid warrant. A decent discussion is here:
That right has been constricted in recent decades. But given this general principle, I cannot imagine that there is any legal bar to making a citizen’s arrest (as opposed to killing the cop) when a cop is trying to arrest you illegally. If he’s doing something else illegal, I don’t know why an analogous rule would not apply.
Mind you, as noted, make darn sure (1) you can effectively overpower and subdue him; and (2) you have solid grounds for, and convincing evidence in support of, your belief that he was involved in criminal activity.
<checks forum>
Incorrect on so many levels. Questions of probable cause and valididty of warrants cannot be determined by a lay person at the scene as the arrest is unfolding. Resisting arrest with lethal force is pretty much a guarenteed way to get dead.
Doesn’t seem like it’d be too tricky if you had a taser handy.
The assertion that it’s impossible to take them down seems rather silly, given the number of officer deaths every year.
I just read a copy of Tactics for Criminal Patrol: Vehicle Stops, Drug Discovery and Officer Survival, and there are tons of bad situations they get into every day.
The real problem is backup; if an officer is trying to arrest you without backup, you’ve got a shot. Arresting a pair of cops without killing one or both goes into the realm of highly unlikely.
It seems like doing this would work much better if you had a dozen friends and a handful of tasers…
No, that’s one of the main differences between a citizen’s arrest and a police arrest (at least in New York). A citizen can only arrest somebody for a crime they directly witnessed. A police officer is not required to have witnessed the crime in order to arrest somebody.
[Again, the question is not whether it’s physically possible to arrest a cop (of course it is, it’s just not adviseable); it’s whether it’s legal for a civilian to do so… IOW what’s gonna happen in court 2 months after you’ve already done it?
What have you done? 