At What Point Can I Resist Arrest?

violence in the media · Thu Dec 04, 2014 4:30 pm

So, because it's topical, at what point (if any) are you, as a civilian, justified in using force or claiming self-defense against a police officer? Speaking in regards to the US only.

I'm not talking about the "don't resist/don't argue with the cop, save it for the judge" attitude, I'm asking about a situation where a person legitimately does not believe they will survive the encounter to present a case to a judge.
edit: Like, could Garner, had he survived, plausibly argue that he was justified in fighting his way out of the choke-hold?

What about a situation where someone doesn't realize the assailant is a cop (e.g. a no-knock warrant served at the wrong address).

Are civilians expected/required to simply lie down and die in any and all altercations with the police? When (if ever) does your right to preserve your life trump your duty to comply?

erik · Post by **erik** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 6:33 pm

Your odds of surviving are greatly increased by being as passive as possible. I imagine most people in danger of dying are already helpless where resisting is more likely to cause further harm only.

You can google self defense vs police and see it can go either way. Some people do escape conviction.
Some states have different laws concerning this as well.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 7:33 pm

The issue is that self-defense is an affirmative defense. In other words, you have to prove that you were in fear of a self-defensible injury and that such fear was reasonable given the circumstances.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 7:43 pm

Never. As a civilian, you very probably can't even resist a single officer by force, and even if you do somehow succeed, the police will inevitably escalate their use of force until you end up captured or killed. Even in the no-knock situation, you're basically looking at beating up a police officer then running for your life and starting a massive manhunt that ends with a swat team shooting you in the head. As erik says, being as passive as possible is the best way to protect yourself during an arrest.

Remember, the goal here isn't to punish the police for hurting people, it is to prevent people from being hurt by the police. When not being arrested, you should protest against police brutality and resist the militarization of the police. When being arrested, you should stop remain non-violent and avoid doing things that will get you killed. Resisting only once it's you getting brutalized is the worst possible answer here.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 7:49 pm

Well, I think you can if you can convince the jury that you were in danger and it wasn't because you were resisting. Something of a tough sell.

However, it's actually pretty uncommon for police to just murder people who weren't resisting at some point.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 8:43 pm

Most people do not passively stand by while they are being killed, yes.

Cops have very broad powers with regards to arrest, and for what constitutes resisting arrest. Everyone is probably guilty of breaking some law, and as people have noted, that can include disrespecting a police officer. At the point where you're fearing for your life from police violence, there is no good solution. At best, you might be able to flee the situation, call a lawyer, and then turn yourself in.

Pixels · Post by **Pixels** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 9:35 pm

Ancient History wrote:At best, you might be able to flee the situation...

Fleeing from an officer who is trying to arrest you is resisting arrest just as much as attacking the officer, and is a crime in its own right.

If an officer uses excessive force before stating they are arresting you and you retaliate, then you might, might be able to slip a conviction. Pray you have witnesses or ironclad evidence such as a video recording, and expect a fierce court battle regardless.

If they are using excessive force in the course of an arrest things get worse, mostly because the bar for what is considered non-excessive rises very quickly if you resist. It doesn't matter whether the arrest itself was lawful or not. It also is based in large part on the officer's judgement of how much of a threat you are. Even if you are fleeing rather than fighting you can be shot if the officer has a reasonable belief that you are dangerous. What constitutes a reasonable belief can be pretty flimsy and yet hold up in court. There's a strong presumption that officers of the law are acting in good faith; it takes extreme circumstances to overcome that presumption.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 9:38 pm

You're resisting arrest whether you flee or fight back; if you are truly afraid for your life by not resisting, fleeing is still the better option. In either case you're proper fucked, but if nothing else, cops are worse at hitting a moving target.

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 9:47 pm

I did just read a case where the judge said that a man could not be charged with resisting arrest and assaulting an officer because the original traffic stop was illegal.

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 10:47 pm

On the other hand: If there is a filming witness and your summary execution seems inevitable, remaining as passive and defenseless as possible will make moderately more likely that one of the rest of us can nail the guy afterwards. Clearly there's no guarantee, the dude is probably gonna walk and also maybe keep his job, but maybe it would be comforting if the chance of posthumous retribution were the last thing to enter your mind? I mean, besides the bullets, obviously.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 11:13 pm

Grek wrote:Never. As a civilian, you very probably can't even resist a single officer by force, and even if you do somehow succeed, the police will inevitably escalate their use of force until you end up captured or killed. Even in the no-knock situation, you're basically looking at beating up a police officer then running for your life and starting a massive manhunt that ends with a swat team shooting you in the head. As erik says, being as passive as possible is the best way to protect yourself during an arrest.

Remember, the goal here isn't to punish the police for hurting people, it is to prevent people from being hurt by the police. When not being arrested, you should protest against police brutality and resist the militarization of the police. When being arrested, you should stop remain non-violent and avoid doing things that will get you killed. Resisting only once it's you getting brutalized is the worst possible answer here.

Think less no knock warrant and more civil rights activists pulled over on a lonely dirt road in 1960s Mississippi.

Or, more currently, a drug dealer pulled over by Vic Mackey. Or whatever. Or crazy serial killer psycho cop from an 80s slasher movie pulling over teenagers on the highway to make sport of them. Or serial rapist cop who gets his kicks forcing himself on prostitutes because he doesn't think anyone will believe them. Or you're a witness in an organized crime case and he's on the takes been paid to murder you. Or whatever.

The point is that the cop isn't just doing his job. He is specifically malicious and will make sure he has the opportunity to do horrible things to you.

Lets say that the cop explicitly wants to murder you. He has set out to do so. His actions do not constitute an arrest. They're part of a murder attempt, and going with him will get you killed.

The point then is to make sure that he doesn't get you alone where he can deny involvement and cover his tracks. You need to make sure that there are unbiased witnesses. Media is nice. So are cops who aren't totally corrupt and intent on murdering you.

You don't have to avoid arrest. You just have to avoid being arrested by the corrupt cops and instead make sure that you're arrested by the good guys.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 1:42 am

Well if you're a black man in Missouri, it's probably in your best interest to immediately shoot any police officer you see :/

(If you reach six Wanted stars, make sure to steal a tank from the military. GTA couldn't possibly lie to me.)

In all seriousness, by "justified" do you mean "legally justified in that you will walk free", "most people will consider you to be in the right" or "what works out best for you"? The last one then obviously depends on how much you value various things.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 2:24 am

hyzmarca wrote:You don't have to avoid arrest. You just have to avoid being arrested by the corrupt cops and instead make sure that you're arrested by the good guys.

As a civilian, you are not able to tell which cops (if any) are corrupt until after they're trying to hurt you. You may be able to make a good guess as to how many cops are corrupt, not which ones are safe to turn yourself into. Even a cop who has nothing against you might be asked by superiors to turn you over to a bad cop. Again, your only hope here is to try to fight against police non-accountability before you get into a situation where the police being able to murder you without answering for it becomes personally relevant.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 3:46 am

My more-interesting moral quandary has been, what if my next door neighbor is getting killed by the police?

I mean obviously, best for me personally is go hide in a closet or something. But at some point, I have to have an obligation to act, right?

I haven't found a satisfactory answer.

violence in the media · Fri Dec 05, 2014 4:01 am

By "justified" I was thinking something along the lines where people (and the law) would generally agree that yes, this officer was unjustifiably trying to kill you. In any case, I was imagining a vague situation where you believed that passive compliance will still get you killed, thus giving you no incentive to not resist. Or, in the example of the wrong address no-knock warrant, where you responded to a home invasion before you realized that they were the police. Or, as hyzmarca suggested, any situation where you have reason to believe the officer is a bad actor.

In all cases, the primary goal is to survive. The bonus goal is to try to not get screwed by the legal system.

Regardless, am I wrong in thinking that these recent situations are incredibly fucked up with regards to what we allow from our police forces? Eric Garner was murdered, on camera, by an identifiable assailant--but it wasn't a crime because reasons. Whatever justice his wife may eventually achieve for him posthumously still leaves him dead.

I mean, I'm in greater "danger" of being summoned for jury duty than I am of encountering the police in any official capacity. But if I were summoned, unless it was a case of Mr. Rogers making a citizen's arrest of fucking Hitler, I don't know that I could avoid automatically assuming that at least half of the statements/evidence provided by the police were deliberate fabrications. I would never get selected for jury duty.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 7:40 am

They are fucked up. As someone who's been in encounters with police where I've both seen a weapon drawn on someone for no reason and have personally had incidents where an officer has grabbed or at least reached for their weapon as a knee jerk reaction to me doing nothing in particular I'm inclined to believe that some (if not most) officers in any area with a troubled racial history is likely to overreact to anything.

As far as I can tell the very best thing to do is just comply with 'whatever' and don't make any sudden movements. I've felt it's like dealing with a dangerous animal at times. Slow, deliberate movements. Clear, passive answers to any and all questions. In one case I nearly had a gun put on my face for getting out of my car at the officer's behest so I could be searched and questioned as to why I was in the area. The area, by the way, was just in some small town in bumfuck nowhere Indiana and I was stopped while doing nothing particularly dangerous, questionable, or illegal.

That's not to say 'all' of my encounters with police have been that way but once you've had it happen to you a few times you get on edge. Seeing officers getting away with things like this only make it worse.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 11:48 am

I seem to recall a dude in Canada who managed to get acquitted of shooting several mounties. They tried to like, break into his house out of uniform and buddy opened up on them. Can't seem to find the links yet; google isn't cooperating.

There's also the Ruby Ridge thing. Both were nightmarish legal battles, but they did defend themselves from law enforcement.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 1:10 pm

violence in the media wrote:I mean, I'm in greater "danger" of being summoned for jury duty than I am of encountering the police in any official capacity. But if I were summoned, unless it was a case of Mr. Rogers making a citizen's arrest of fucking Hitler, I don't know that I could avoid automatically assuming that at least half of the statements/evidence provided by the police were deliberate fabrications. I would never get selected for jury duty.

The only time I've been selected for jury duty the prosecutors kicked me off almost immediately. From the questions that were being asked, I got the impression their case was based almost entirely on the eyewitness testimony of a known felon (who seemed like they had made a bargain for their testimony) and some criminal relationship between the defendant and the victim (that this witness was also involved in?). They singled me out for a hypothetical (I think the prosecutor noticed my discomfort while he was setting the hypothetical up) in which I was personally mugged and asked me something loaded like if I'd want to see the person who did that get caught, and I answered honestly to the effect that I'd be really uncomfortable with a conviction on the basis of a single eyewitness's identification of a stranger who they saw for a few seconds at night, even if I was that eye witness, and mentioned corroborating evidence that would make me more comfortable accepting the identification (the weapon, my wallet, etc, etc).

So yeah, my only experience with the justice system involves being prosecutor-vetoed for a murder case in which one drug dealer pointed fingers at another drug dealer in exchange for some sort of pass on the basis that I correctly believe the testimony of a single eye witness makes a ridiculously fucking weak case. That's a sample size of one and I have no idea what evidence was ultimately presented at trial, but it certainly reinforced my existing skepticism of our justice system.

Ikeren · Post by **Ikeren** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 7:27 pm

I seem to recall a dude in Canada who managed to get acquitted of shooting several mounties. They tried to like, break into his house out of uniform and buddy opened up on them. Can't seem to find the links yet; google isn't cooperating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Parasiris

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 1:57 am

There we go. Thanks.

infected slut princess · Sun Dec 07, 2014 10:23 pm

You can never resist arrest because if someone has a badge and a gun they have the right to rape you all night long.