LEO only, want your thoughts

[Redemption]

I want thoughts from LEO only on this. Some information will be omitted due to confidentiality. I work in armed security and I ran into a sort of.... frustrating issue recently.

Backstory:
So I am on patrol in a city I will be working in regularly starting next month. One of my sister beats gets a dispatch call response for a petty crime. He shows, subject off property. He speaks with the client, takes off and heads to another property. Same subject happened to wander over to that property, engages in some petty crimes, gets caught Coworker hooks subject up, both clients want to press charges.

PD contacted, placed in que. Now we know we have a bit of a wait...3 hours go by, 5 hours go by. We make contact and we are heavily encouraged not to turn the subject loose and that PD should be on-site within an hour.

Two hours more go by and still nothing. So we make the call and let PD know that if they can't get a unit out we are going to need to turn this guy loose (supervisors call) PD shows up within 45 transfers the suspect and makes off with my coworkers handcuffs. My understanding is that the reason PD didn't want us to turn this subject loose is due to numerous warrants.

At what point does length of detainer become inhumane? If I ever find myself in this situation again, or where I am the arresting entity I want to make sure that I personally make the right call.

[esy]

Well, from what your story states, there was no detention. Subject was under arrest under good PC (I hope) so now it’s just a matter of the subject’s disposition. They are now arrested and not detained. Detained would be if you were still investigating the crime and trying to put together your PC for the crime that is to be charged.

[Redemption]

Well, from what your story states, there was no detention. Subject was under arrest under good PC (I hope) so now it’s just a matter of the subject’s disposition. They are now arrested and not detained. Detained would be if you were still investigating the crime and trying to put together your PC for the crime that is to be charged.

Yeah sorry slip of the fingers. Last night's patrol shift was rough. Subject was under arrest, for good pc, with witnesses, and in possession of stolen property.

So, in this case, that length of time is not over any legal lines?

Reason I ask, is because it was in the 90's yesterday and sitting in the heat in handcuffs for almost 8 hours is rough.

Disposition: Subject would go through periods of compliance and periods of non compliance and was a self professed skitzo and hard drug user.

[Samuelx]

All else being equal, was what you did (or in some cases, didn't do) in compliance with clearly established laws? Was what you did (or in some cases, didn't do) Reasonable given the totality of the circumstances? How about your company's policies or procedures? What are your SOP/options if local PD response is delayed like that?

If you're concerned about "inhumane" (e.g. due to conditions or circumstances), is there anything you can do, without compromising officer safety/prisoner security, to make things a little more "humane" for your arrestee? (e.g. air conditioning, water, etc)

[Che762x39]

... PD contacted, placed in que. Now we know we have a bit of a wait...3 hours go by, 5 hours go by. We make contact and we are heavily encouraged not to turn the subject loose and that PD should be on-site within an hour.

Two hours more go by and still nothing. So we make the call and let PD know that if they can't get a unit out we are going to need to turn this guy loose (supervisors call) PD shows up within 45 transfers the suspect and makes off with my coworkers handcuffs ...

Retired LEO here. Not all PDs are created equal. Some PDs are really lame and others really 'do the right thing'.

I would consider letting the Watch Commander know that 8 hours is not reasonable. If the WC wants to kiss it off you have other options. I hope your coworker gets his cuffs back. Good luck ...

[Redemption]

All else being equal, was what you did (or in some cases, didn't do) in compliance with clearly established laws? Was what you did (or in some cases, didn't do) Reasonable given the totality of the circumstances? How about your company's policies or procedures? What are your SOP/options if local PD response is delayed like that?

If you're concerned about "inhumane" (e.g. due to conditions or circumstances), is there anything you can do, without compromising officer safety/prisoner security, to make things a little more "humane" for your arrestee? (e.g. air conditioning, water, etc)

We made every effort to make him as reasonably comfortable as possible. Windows down on the squad vehicle, we did kick on the AC but most of our vehicles have no AC or in that case his squad car has not very good AC. I did also get and give to him a bottle of water though I was made aware after the fact that due to liability, we should not allow an arrestee to eat or drink during his time in our custody. Personally I felt the risk of him not replacing fluids was a greater liability to us while he was in our custody, given how much he was sweating, despite the shade, despite the AC.

We don't really have options in that situation. Our choices are hold until PD arrives or turn suspect loose. It is not lawful for us to transport, and because of that in the meantime we can not do our other work.

Far as procedure.... Procedure has changed for that city specifically due to that situation... And it's not a change I would consider to be the best.

[Redemption]

Retired LEO here. Not all PDs are created equal. Some PDs are really lame and others really 'do the right thing'.

I would consider letting the Watch Commander know that 8 hours is not reasonable. If the WC wants to kiss it off you have other options. I hope your coworker gets his cuffs back. Good luck ...

Supervisor in question was watch commander. I had broken away from that situation at around hour 5 and went to tag team a couple of our rougher properties at around hour 7 we were headed back to the property that subject was being held at and we were talking about how we both felt that 7 hours in cuffs waiting to be picked up was just unreasonable, that was when the decision was made to tell PD to get their backside in gear or we we're going to turn the subject loose.

I know this particular city has been badly impacted, and their PD is having a hard time but man....8 hours is a long time.

[RickD427]

As previous posters have correctly pointed out, this was an arrest and not a detention.

It is a little unclear from the scenario if the arrest was lawfully made. Under Penal Code section 837, a misdemeanor arrest can only be made when the offense was committed in the presence of the person making an arrest.

Once the arrest is made, Penal Code section 847(a) requires the person making the arrest to do one of two things, and to do them without "unnecessary delay": 1) Deliver the person arrested to peace officer, or 2) Take the person arrested before a magistrate. Please note the wording calling for the person to be "delivered" to the peace officer. That suggests the burden for transportation falls on the person making the arrest. As a practical matter, it's much better for the peace officer to do the transportation, but the wording of the statute doesn't let you off the hook if they don't.

Also please note that there is no provision in law for a private person to release an arrestee (there is such a provision for peace officers to release in PC 849), nor is there a provision allowing an arresting person to release the arrestee to another private person. The only two options permitted by law are to take them to a magistrate or peace officer. If you were to release such a person without complying with the requirements of PC 847, you may be creating some criminal liability on your part for false imprisonment and/or kidnapping. Remember, it's the lawful arrest that permits you to restrain the person's movements. If you act in a manner inconsistent with that arrest, you may be giving up that protection.

One of the responsibilities that goes along with an arrest authority is the duty to care for the person arrested. Keeping somebody handcuffed in a parked vehicle for eight hours probably isn't going to meet that standard.

What LE agency was involved? Unless there was some exceptional level of field activity, I'm having a hard time understanding an eight hour response.

It's important to understand the responsibilities that go along with the making of an arrest. Had I been in your shoes, I would have transported the arrestee after a couple of hours. It's real important to understand the details of PC 837 and PC 847 when working in your capacity.

[TrailerparkTrash]

Stop picking on LAPD and their delayed response times.

Seriously though, why won’t you name the police department involved in your story? It’s rather silly not to. I don’t get it.

[Redemption]

As previous posters have correctly pointed out, this was an arrest and not a detention.

It is a little unclear from the scenario if the arrest was lawfully made. Under Penal Code section 837, a misdemeanor arrest can only be made when the offense was committed in the presence of the person making an arrest.

Once the arrest is made, Penal Code section 847(a) requires the person making the arrest to do one of two things, and to do them without "unnecessary delay": 1) Deliver the person arrested to peace officer, or 2) Take the person arrested before a magistrate. Please note the wording calling for the person to be "delivered" to the peace officer. That suggests the burden for transportation falls on the person making the arrest. As a practical matter, it's much better for the peace officer to do the transportation, but the wording of the statute doesn't let you off the hook if they don't.

Also please note that there is no provision in law for a private person to release an arrestee (there is such a provision for peace officers to release in PC 849), nor is there a provision allowing an arresting person to release the arrestee to another private person. The only two options permitted by law are to take them to a magistrate or peace officer. If you were to release such a person without complying with the requirements of PC 847, you may be creating some criminal liability on your part for false imprisonment and/or kidnapping. Remember, it's the lawful arrest that permits you to restrain the person's movements. If you act in a manner inconsistent with that arrest, you may be giving up that protection.

One of the responsibilities that goes along with an arrest authority is the duty to care for the person arrested. Keeping somebody handcuffed in a parked vehicle for eight hours probably isn't going to meet that standard.

What LE agency was involved? Unless there was some exceptional level of field activity, I'm having a hard time understanding an eight hour response.

It's important to understand the responsibilities that go along with the making of an arrest. Had I been in your shoes, I would have transported the arrestee after a couple of hours. It's real important to understand the details of PC 837 and PC 847 when working in your capacity.

In this particular case I should clarify a couple of things. I'm not playing the (my friend) game here. I was not the arresting entity, the p/o on the sister beat next to me was. It just happens that some of our locations cross paths and the location of the arrest was a property that those two beats are on. I did however speak with him and he says he did wittiness the second crime in progress, the first one there is some disagreement about weather or not it is a felony (due to the amount of damage) I came to that location after the fact and assisted him in any way I could given that I was already expected to be at that property anyway.

It is my understanding that we are not allowed to transport an arrestee, for what reason I am unclear, it may be due to an insurance limitation, I will have to seek further clarification so I am not speaking out of turn. But that said even if the arresting individual had been able to transport this did not take place on a week day, what magistrate could he have delivered the arrestee to? On the note of standards I have to agree with you that 8 hours on it's face does not meet the standard for timely. However that begs a question.

If we can not transport (still have to clarify this) and police response runs slow, and we can not legally turn the arrestee loose because it opens us to liability, then who's liability does the excessive delay fall on?

This is more or less just for my personal education for the future because the procedure change in our company regarding this matter means that in that particular case we will no longer persue arrests in that city for anything that isn't considered priority.

Far as the department involved, as a guard in an LEO section I don't / did not want to come off as LEO or department bashing. I will say it is one of the departments in the Inland Empire area who has had some severe staffing issues, I believe due to funding. Thar aught to narrow it down quite a lot. I do have to say I have no way of knowing, but I have a hard time believing there was exceptional field activity, I personally counted 6 squad vehicles pass our pause, no lights, no sirens at a rate of speed not consistent with someone heading to a priority call.

Their direct line kept giving us the priority calls song and dance.
But then every department does that. It's not like it isn't painfully obvious to us. There have been times where we have people hooked for serious stuff, response time is about ten minutes, and when we have someone hooked for something like this 8 hours. No one likes to get stuck on a paper call, or a boring transport when their coworkers are on something vastly more interesting.

Lol. It's not LAPD, think Inland Empire.

[P5Ret]

You seem to be glossing over one of the most important parts of Rick's post, "Under Penal Code section 837, a misdemeanor arrest can only be made when the offense was committed in the presence of the person making an arrest." Since it does not sound like your beat partner actually witnessed the crimes, it may be an issue if this guy has an attorney worth a cup full of spit.

Just like bail enforcement agents, your company has a great deal of responsibility toward people taken into custody. If insurance is the problem with transporting someone to the local PD or sheriff's facility, someone needs to ask a important question, is the companies liability any less keeping someone restrained in the back seat of a vehicle for an extended period of time, than it is taking that person to a place where they can be turned over to LE?

[Redemption]

You seem to be glossing over one of the most important parts of Rick's post, "Under Penal Code section 837, a misdemeanor arrest can only be made when the offense was committed in the presence of the person making an arrest." Since it does not sound like your beat partner actually witnessed the crimes, it may be an issue if this guy has an attorney worth a cup full of spit.

Just like bail enforcement agents, your company has a great deal of responsibility toward people taken into custody. If insurance is the problem with transporting someone to the local PD or sheriff's facility, someone needs to ask a important question, is the companies liability any less keeping someone restrained in the back seat of a vehicle for an extended period of time, than it is taking that person to a place where they can be turned over to LE?

No I did not gloss over his question. And I am sure you probably just missed it in my wall of text. "I did however speak with him and he says he did wittiness the second crime in progress" this is in reference to the arresting individual.

As far as liability goes, I spoke with my operations manager about this today and it was made clear to me in no uncertain terms that transporting an arrestee is not an option for us. I am still unclear on the why but if that is the company Sop then that is the company Sop.

I agree about our responsibility, I would also tend to agree with you about asking the question of the liability of transport vs extended time cuffed in a vehicle. I however am a small fish in this pond and I do not have any power in this equation to affect company policy. But I know when I do find myself in that position in that city I just won't arrest for offenses that are not priority forbthat PD, as that is now the standing order.

[P5Ret]

That sure doesn't exactly match up to what you originally wrote,"He shows, subject off property. He speaks with the client, takes off and heads to another property. Same subject happened to wander over to that property, engages in some petty crimes, gets caught Coworker hooks subject up, both clients want to press charges."

Now maybe it's just the way you wrote it, but you need to be as detailed as possible. Just saying "get's caught" is a bit ambiguous, get's caught by store employee's or what. Since your whole story is lacking a lot of important detail I can only hope that if you have to write a report or statement it's going to a lot more detailed than what you seem willing to provide here, even thought your looking for advise that hinge's on some of those details.

[RickD427]

In this particular case I should clarify a couple of things. I'm not playing the (my friend) game here. I was not the arresting entity, the p/o on the sister beat next to me was. It just happens that some of our locations cross paths and the location of the arrest was a property that those two beats are on. I did however speak with him and he says he did wittiness the second crime in progress, the first one there is some disagreement about weather or not it is a felony (due to the amount of damage) I came to that location after the fact and assisted him in any way I could given that I was already expected to be at that property anyway.

It is my understanding that we are not allowed to transport an arrestee, for what reason I am unclear, it may be due to an insurance limitation, I will have to seek further clarification so I am not speaking out of turn. But that said even if the arresting individual had been able to transport this did not take place on a week day, what magistrate could he have delivered the arrestee to? On the note of standards I have to agree with you that 8 hours on it's face does not meet the standard for timely. However that begs a question.

If we can not transport (still have to clarify this) and police response runs slow, and we can not legally turn the arrestee loose because it opens us to liability, then who's liability does the excessive delay fall on?

This is more or less just for my personal education for the future because the procedure change in our company regarding this matter means that in that particular case we will no longer persue arrests in that city for anything that isn't considered priority.

Far as the department involved, as a guard in an LEO section I don't / did not want to come off as LEO or department bashing. I will say it is one of the departments in the Inland Empire area who has had some severe staffing issues, I believe due to funding. Thar aught to narrow it down quite a lot. I do have to say I have no way of knowing, but I have a hard time believing there was exceptional field activity, I personally counted 6 squad vehicles pass our pause, no lights, no sirens at a rate of speed not consistent with someone heading to a priority call.

Their direct line kept giving us the priority calls song and dance.
But then every department does that. It's not like it isn't painfully obvious to us. There have been times where we have people hooked for serious stuff, response time is about ten minutes, and when we have someone hooked for something like this 8 hours. No one likes to get stuck on a paper call, or a boring transport when their coworkers are on something vastly more interesting.



Lol. It's not LAPD, think Inland Empire.

You have to keep in mind that California's Private Person arrest laws date way back to the wild west days and don't reflect modern practice very well. But they're still the law and they still govern your conduct.

I also don't see any practical way for you to deliver an arrestee directly to a magistrate, especially if you're armed, and with the courthouse security practices in place. That leaves delivery to a peace officer as your only way to comply with PC 847.

If your company does not authorize you to transport, they may have created a legal "Catch-22" for their legal staff to resolve. An insurance policy provision, or a company policy does not change your obligations under the law. Once you arrest someone, you have to "deliver" them without unnecessary delay to a peace officer. The law does not require the peace officer to come and get them.

This isn't going to become a criminal issue for you. I see just about a zero chance of a District Attorney criminally charging you for false imprisonment if you unreasonably hold an arrestee under the conditions discussed here, but I could easily see a civil suit being filed and won if you fail to comply with PC 847.

I suspect that San Bernadino PD may be playing games to draw attention to their fiscal distress. I'd be very wary of becoming a pawn in that game. One of my favorite movies was the Mel Brooks comedy "Blazing Saddles." In that movie there is a scene where a new town sheriff rides into town and meets a hostile resistance from the citizens. Sensing that he is about to be attacked, he pulls out his revolver and points it at his head. Then he starts making demands of the crowd. Seeing that the new sheriff is being held hostage by a crazy man, the citizens give in to his demands and the sheriff is saved. It was really funny seeing that in a comedy movie. It's not so funny when I see real-life sheriffs and police chiefs doing the same thing.

[Redemption]

That sure doesn't exactly match up to what you originally wrote,"He shows, subject off property. He speaks with the client, takes off and heads to another property. Same subject happened to wander over to that property, engages in some petty crimes, gets caught Coworker hooks subject up, both clients want to press charges."

Now maybe it's just the way you wrote it, but you need to be as detailed as possible. Just saying "get's caught" is a bit ambiguous, get's caught by store employee's or what. Since your whole story is lacking a lot of important detail I can only hope that if you have to write a report or statement it's going to a lot more detailed than what you seem willing to provide here, even thought your looking for advise that hinge's on some of those details.

P5Ret, you are killing me here man. Yes he had good PC. I know he had good PC for the arrest and that is not in question here.