I don’t need a fast answer, and I’m not seeking legal counsel.
This is entirely hypothetical, as I’ve never actually been detained by security before. I’ve also never shoplifted before, but I have set off those door buzzers on a few occasions. I always ignore them and just carry on with whatever I was doing.
Suppose, however, that a non-LEO security guard decides he is just not going to let me leave, because he mistakenly thinks I have stolen something. I know that resisting arrest by LEO is a big no-no, even if it’s a false arrest. But wouldn’t the security guard would effectively be performing a citizen’s arrest? How far can I go in freeing myself from a false citizen’s arrest? Can I forcibly move the guy out of my way so that I may leave the premises? Punch him in the nose? In the balls? Knock him unconscious? Whatever I deem necessary to escape the situation?
IANAL, but a security guard detaining a suspected thief falls under Shopkeeper’s privilege, which is separate from a normal citizen’s arrest.
In the general case of citizen’s arrest, assuming you haven’t committed the crime that the citizen is arresting you for, I can’t see why you couldn’t use reasonable force just as if it was an assault. Just because they’re yelling “citizen’s arrest!” doesn’t mean you have to stop resisting, as you would for a law enforcement officer.
Well, no, hold on. It’s going to depend on the law of the jurisdiction in which the attempted arrest is made, but common law and many statutory citizens arrest powers extend to cases where the arrestor “reasonably suspects” someone of committing an offence (or an offence of a particular class). Or citizen’s arrest is allowed if an offence has actually been committed and you are “reasonably suspected” of committing it.
Which means that a citizen’s arrest may be lawful even though you haven’t actually committed the crime for which you are being arrested. And, if it’s a lawful arrest, it’s not an assault, and you can’t safely respond as if it were.
I am pretty sure Wal-Mart security does have the right to detain, at least in most places.
And the local LEO would probably see punching him in the balls as unnecessary assault.
They would also probably be of the mind that if you have NOT stolen anything there was nothing to worry about escaping except a few minutes of time lost, that said store might have even been terribly sorry about and gave you a gift card or something to make it up to you.
Security personnel are NOT police and do not have police powers.
A security guard may not detain you by means of force. This is assault and/or false imprisonment and you can (and should) press charges as well as sue the everloving fuck out of their employers (the security agency) and the venue that hired them.
When I was a University security guard, we had to trespass people from the place for various things - most commonly looking at porn on public computers. We would escort the person to our office and fill out the paperwork. However, we were keenly aware that we could not touch or forcibly detain anyone. If that person decided to cut and run while we were walking them back, we were done. No business chasing them.
Of course, we had a daytime sergeant who was a violent prick and he would chase people down and tackle them. He was damned lucky no one ever knew or thought they could have his ass arrested for it and sue the crap out of the University.
False. The company I work for uses force to detain shoplifters dozens of times a day. As long as we can show in court (which we can) that the shoplifter was observed selecting the product, kept under surveillance while making their way through the store, and attempted to exit the store without attempting to pay for the product, then we have the full right to detain them physically and no charge of “assault” or “false imprisonment” is going to stick to us.
But how do I, as the victim of their arrest who knows I haven’t committed the crime, judge at the time whether their suspicion is reasonable? I find it difficult to believe that just because someone thinks I did something and decides to grab me because of it, that I have no right to defend myself.
I’d have to think that there is some middle ground where they won’t be prosecuted for a lawful arrest if they had reasonable suspicion that I committed a crime, but I am not prosecuted either for treating their arrest as an assault, since I did not in fact commit the crime.
That’s the shopkeeper’s privilege I linked to in post 2. A security guard working for a merchant has slightly more power to detain a suspected thief than a security guard at another type of business.
You have a variation on that problem when the police arrest you. The police have wider powers of arrest, but not unlimited powers. If you know you’re innocent and a police officer detains you on the basis that he reasonably suspects you (or otherwise reasonably believes something that would entitle him to arrest you) how do you know whether his suspicion/belief is reasonable or not?
In either case, if you physically attack the arrestor, you do so at your own risk.
I think the middle ground is that the court will cut you some slack when it comes to sentencing.
If charged with assault, there is a defence of “self-defence”, and obviously you’d plead that defence. To make out that defence you have to show that you were resisting an “**apparent **threat of **unlawful **and immediate violence”. Granted that the attempted arrest is violent, and that it’s immediate, but does it appear to be unlawful? No, it doesn’t, unless you can point to something that shows the arrestor’s suspicion was unreasonable. If he says “citizen’s arrest!”, what he’s essentially saying is that he has a reasonable suspicion that you committed an offence. If he does, the arrest is lawful. This is not refuted by showing that you did not commit an offence.
So, before you kick him in the nuts and take to your heels, make very sure that you will able to show that his suspicion was not just objectively incorrect, but also unreasonable. Otherwise, your best course is to submit to the arrest and sue for false imprisonment later, when you’ve had more time to assemble the evidence that shows his suspicion was unreasonable.
Putting someone under false citizen’s arrest is a crime. Solution: you put them under citizen’s arrest. Any action they take can be reciprocated. They grab you, you grab them. Wait until a philosopher shows up to resolve it.
