I remember seeing a news story when I was a wee lad. In it, a shopkeeper got sick of being more or less regularly burgled, so he built a trap with a shotgun and a tripwire. Sure enough, he iced a burglar with it, and promptly went to jail, as lethal boobytraps are frowned upon by law enforcement; your property is not worth a burglar’s life.
Since then, I’ve seen a few other news stories like that, but they had something in common: a fed up property owner who’d been robbed several times decided to set up a trap for the next jerk who came to rob him.
In recent years, there was the story of a burglar who decided to leave his victim’s home through the door to the garage… but then realized the automatic garage door opener was keeping the garage door from opening. So he tried to go back into the house… only to find the door had locked behind him. He spent eight days in the garage, living on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food. Upon his arrest, he immediately sued the homeowner for a large sum, and won.
Not really. Snopes sez it’s an urban legend, of the type that tends to surface when some politician or other is pushing for tort reform. But it’s an interesting story.
This leads me to yesterday’s story of the alleged burglar. To make a long story short: a man who owned a cell phone store that was subject to regular burglary seems to have set a trap consisting of locked doors and doors that lock behind you, thus trapping a fellow in a corridor overnight. And recording the fellow’s travails on security cam. And then calling the cops in the morning.
The alleged burglar was not harmed, simply detained for the night. But I wonder: is this legal? Is this actionable?
I think this would be against all fire codes. Not being able to get out of a building. So that may be a problem with the code people. But probably not a huge offence.
Hadn’t thought of that. Do fire codes apply when there isn’t supposed to be anyone IN the building?
I’m also kind of wondering why, if you can secure a building to keep people IN, why you can’t secure it to keep people OUT. What, is the back door unlockable?
Sure you can secure a building to keep people out. Just don’t put any keyholes or door knobs on the outside. Of course. you won’t be able to get into your own building (without knocking down a door or wall).
And that’s how you lock someone in: don’t install anything that lets you open the door from the inside. You could do the reverse to lock people out, but then you would have to keep someone inside to open the door in case they legitimately want to get in.
That’s not quite what I meant. I’m presuming that one locks up the building when one leaves at the end of the day. How are the burglars getting in? Seems like that’d be kind of a priority to figure out after multiple burglaries.
And my thoughts on fire code would be: “Sure, these doors are all unlocked during business hours. But must they be unlocked when the business is closed?” It just seemed to me to be a genius way to catch crooks, legally and above board, without having to string shotguns or whatever.
Most fire codes and the like generally prioritize life-safety over property safety. Also they apply to building design in general - minor changes to occupancy can change over time of course (like going to 24hr shifts).
Having a building deliberately set up as a ‘trap’ to prevent any exit i think would be a breach of the majority of fire codes. of course, residential, retail, commercial and industrial all differ in interpretation somewhat. However, if this event was in the US and that state body applied the general NFPA guidelines and this is a commercial property, no doubt that’d be a breach. but that only matters if something bad happens, like he sets the place on fire and then dies. Otherwise its a bit of a minor issue - probably issue a report to rectify in 7 days or whatever.
In Australia this law is federal and is very specific for outside the home - use of any trap, whether a legal animal trap or a home made device, that has the potentially to cause death or grievous bodily harm is penalized in itself by a maximum 5 year sentence plus the penalty’s to whatever injury the scumbag breaking in has obtained. Remember generally many groups of people, including private citizens, have the legal right to access your property for a huge range of reasons unless you specifically provide notice at the boundary. You dont want to take off the poor surveyors leg because he is digging around in your yard looking for a marker, or the meter reader etc.
For inside the home, its slightly more murky, but you’d be seriously playing with fire to use a trap intended to hurt a human. There is some cases of legal precedent , wherein if the homeowner provided sufficient notice of the perils of the trap - god knows how in context - and the burglar also could have been shown to have intent to do you harm (armed with a gun or whatever) then you might be within your legal rights of internal property defense with such a device. All sounds a bit unlikely.
Physical man entrapment inside the house - the costs and difficulties associated with forming a system that could physically restrain a person who badly wanted to leave a house or shed or whatever would be a massive undertaking?
Wouldn’t play at all in the UK. You can use “reasonable force” to detain a burglar, but that does not include whacking him with the baseball bat you keep handy - well, it might if the burglar was bigger than you and you said you were afraid for your life.
There was a case a few years ago that caused an uproar when a small farmer (the farm was small not the guy) offed a burglar who was robbing his shed. He was prosecuted and jailed, but after a big media campaign, he was released. Later the law (or the interpretation of it) was altered so that when a Guy chased a burglar, who had threatened his family, down the street and killed him, he was not prosecuted.
Wiring the door knobs to the mains, laying man traps in your pheasant breeding woods, shooting sheep rustlers (though you can shoot their dogs) or other lethal deterrents are strictly off limits.
As an aside, there is at least one famous door that has no means to open it from the outside. Our Prime Ministers house, No 10 Downing Street, has a policemen stationed on the inside to open it for callers.
In my experience, the mantrap vestibules I’ve been exposed to (access control in high-security military facilities) didn’t have an internal “emergency escape” crash bar, but were always under the scrutiny and remote control of at least two US Army MPs who, one hopes, would release the exit door before fleeing in case of a facility emergency.
Well, yeah. Intent matters. It’s hard to argue that you had a shotgun and tripwire just in case a bear wandered in during the night.
But self-locking doors are a thing, and they can be keyed to lock or not lock when the door closes. And how much harm is caused to a burglar by simply getting stuck in a corridor all night?
Can I simply say, “I was securing my premises, and didn’t expect that poor guy to somehow get in and get trapped in a hallway where there wasn’t supposed to be anyone all night?” and get away with it? And if so, how often?
I’d think this would be a thing with security firms if it was TOTALLY legal…
Well, yeah, but they were in their own house. And I’d differentiate “booby trap” from “self locking doors.” Generally, the whole POINT of a booby trap is to inflict harm.
That’s like asking “Do traffic laws apply when the light is green?”. Yes, they do.
Fire codes specify how the building can be constructed and what sort of hardware can be installed. The exact code varies for different locations (usually set at the state level) and is interpreted by the Authority Having Jurisdiction. In most cases, the AHJ is the local Fire Marshall. Most fire codes across the US are very similar to each other.
You’re probably thinking of those signs which say “THIS DOOR TO REMAIN UNLOCKED WHILE THE BUILDING IS OCCUPIED”. This is permitted by a section of the fire code that specifies what type of locks business can have; it doesn’t apply to residences. Businesses are open to the public and have multiple visitors each day, so the rules are different. Look above the door. Do you see an emergency exit sign? If so, then that door must be openable from the inside with no special knowledge and single-motion egress. That means you can’t require a key to open the door from the inside, because knowing where the key is kept counts as “special knowledge”. But there’s an exception to this in the fire code. It says that, on the front doors only, the AHJ has the option to allow the business to install locks which can’t be opened from the inside without a key. If they choose that option, they need the “THIS DOOR TO REMAIN…” sign above the door. But that’s for the front door only; the other emergency exit doors in the building still have to operate with no special knowledge and single-motion egress.
If you’re thinking about putting some kind of electronic lock on all the doors of your house which would detect a burglary and respond by locking the burglar inside your house… yes, that would be a violation of fire code. Every sleeping area must have a “path of egress” which is an invisible line leading from the bedroom, down the hallway, and out the door into the yard. The path of egress can’t go through the garage. Along the path of egress, if there are any locked doors, the locks must be easily recognizable as locks and you must be able to open them from the inside with no special knowledge. Sliding glass doors and double cylinder deadbolts are examples which don’t meet that standard. Some houses are required to have more than one path of egress, depending on the size of the house.
Having said all that, the local Fire Marshall inspects a private residence exactly ONCE, when the house is first built and the blueprints are approved. They never inspect it again. So you could alter your house so that it doesn’t meet fire code and the Fire Marshall would never find out you did it. But if someone died in a fire and their family sued you and it came out at the trial that you intentionally violated the fire code, I’d say you would lose, big time. OTOH, it is quite common for houses to have many many building code violations because the code has changed since the time the house was built. Generally speaking, you’re not going to get into trouble if your house had double cylinder deadbolts installed back when they were legal. But if you take those locks off the door and install new ones, the new ones need to be up to code.
Not so much an electronic lock system… as simply a room or corridor where if you entered and allowed the door to close, you can’t get out from inside; all doors leading out of the room are locked from inside the room.
I wouldn’t want to do it in a residence; too much chance of accident. But a business?
Does the burglar get a pass since you had a fire code violation that trapped him?
He gets to keep the $$$ awarded in the law suit.
His family gets to keep the money and give it to him after he serves his time?
Without death, just serious( ? ) injury, the home owner will spend more time in jail than the burglar even though he remained free long enough to hide the loot before going to the hospital and getting brother to file suit? ( Injured, not trapped in this case. )
Convenient timing - On a related note; The Boston Globe reported today on a homeowner who pursued a fleeing burglar down the street and beat him up. The homeowner is charged with assault and battery.
