http://video.foxnews.com/v/995848465001/police-chief-in-trouble-for-doing-his-job/ (Sorry it's FoxNews so take it as you will)

Just curious am I going to be arrested by cops if I say...defend myself in my own home subduing someone that is trying to rob me because I did their job? Know that the Castle Law is in place here in FL, but still after watching this it makes me wonder wth is going on with the US lately.

Sometimes I wonder about the mental capacity of these union leaders. What if a off duty nurse didn't preform CPR on a guy because she was off duty?

:facepalm: [censored] idiots.

Here, at least, it is possible for any citizen to make a citizen's arrest. According to Wikipedia, every state but North Carolina allows this. A citizen is free to apprehend criminals if they have a good reason. All one needs to do is state that they are under arrest and then turn them over to the authorities. What he did sounds like it fits those requirements, regardless of whether or not he's a police officer. But the guy is a cop. Making an arrest shouldn't be determined only by whether or not he is on-duty. He can make that same arrest if he wasn't a cop, so the fact that he's being punished for doing something anyone can legally do, and as an officer of the law what he should be doing, leads me to believe that this union is incompetent.

That would be a little different, since CPR can be performed without having a specific job and can be performed by ordinary citizens. (Whereas with arrests, the police are granted special powers, authority, and protections, whereas an ordinary citizen can only make a so-called "citizen's arrest under limited circumstances and are held to the strict-liability principle) As for the union itself, the union is claiming that the police chief's actions violated the labor agreement they have with the police department. Now, whether or not that is technically true under their agreement, this is still a stupid complaint, but the union might "technically" have a point.

@predatorX, no, you wouldn't be arrested. The union's complaint is that the police chief violated the labor agreement between the bargaining units (members of union within the police force) and the police department by performing work that they claim the agreement reserves for the bargaining workers. As a civilian, your not entitled to perform police work in the first place, and even if you subdue someone attacking you the fact is your not performing police work but committing actions which are normally illegal under the criminal code but are contextually allowable according to various aspects of the legal code and common-law of your locale.

Doesn't the USA have a citizen's power of arrest? Here, you can apprehend someone if it's a serious crime and there's no police around to do it.

The power of citizen's arrest can and is granted by most states. However, different states have different regulations on how it can be performed and for what crimes. For example: state A may only allow citizen's arrests if the arresting citizen witnessed a felony, whereas State B may allow it for all crimes that were personally witnessed.

edit: also, with citizen's arrest, the citizen who performed the arrest is potentially legally liable for any harm that came to the accused criminal. So if you perform a citizen's arrest on me, I could sue you for any harm suffered to my body or property.

[censored] unions. First the Divine Right of Kings, now the Divine Right of Unions.

My gosh :facepalm:

I don't know the particulars of this story, but in general it's the unions who are protecting you from those kings you mentioned. Also, they gave us weekends. We have unions to regulate businesses, but maybe it's time for a third party to regulate unions. That's why our government has 3 branches, we get a nice rock paper scissors system of checks and balances.

Scranton? Should have had Dwight on the case.

Yup that is true unfortunately I swear i've heard of a criminal that botched up a robbery at a convenience store and hurt himself in the process. He then hired an attorney that prosecuted the owner of the store for his injuries regardless of the fact that he tried to rob the place.

When I was growing up I was taught that a Cop/Policeman/Police Person/Officer was there to help you out. Never heard any of this BS where only a "Beat Cop" could do the arresting not police chiefs and if police chief's arrested someone they violated union rights. And I wonder why people make fun of the USA that I currently live in. :facepalm:

But USA isnt the only country where that happens, it does happens in others too

Stop right there, non-union scum! You've violated the law!

Un-freaking-believable. What motivation does the union have for pursuing this? I really want to hear their side.

Hmm "members of the bargaining unit". That's probably the rank-and-file.

They have serious problems between their rank-and-file and their brass out there in Scranton. I sense, a deep, underlying resentment and distrust of the brass and I don't know the cause.

I work at UPS, and the supervisors get in trouble if they help the workers do their work for the same reason as this. Its stupid. They're just helping. Also, its good that this union is more interested in nailing big bad guys like this police chief than justice and helping the city etc.

The cop obviously pissed somebody high up in the union off, or the guy who was arrested has some kind of connections within the union.

I've never heard of a criminal actually winning one of those law suits.

Oh, they have here... many times.


edit:
we had a case a number of years back where a guy is being robbed at knife point.

The victim sees chance to grab a 2x4 and fends off the attacker, who went to the police and had the guy arrested for aggravated assault (where as the mugger was only charged with threatening with a deadly weapon..)

second post -because this one is even sillier.


A home owner places razor-wire along a window sill.

Along comes a burglar, minding his own business when suddenly he decided not to mind his own business and tries to break in, nearly having his fingers lobbed off on the razor wire in the process.


are we ready for this....


The burglar sued the home owner, and won. :facepalm:

There should be a law saying you can't sue if you suffered the injury or whatever during or as a direct result of you committing a crime. Heck, I think people should have a set number of lawsuits they can file in their lifetime. For that matter, assaulting someone who's threatening you with a deadly weapon should be considered self defense.

This is where the hitch is, you can defend yourself, but you aren't allowed to assault someone while defending yourself. -and yes, it's your own civic responsibility to know the difference here in Holland.

disarming techniques, blocks and holds are fine, but pro active take down measures are not.

Doesn't stop me from teaching krav maga to people in my spare time though :tongue:

*moves to holland for krav maga lessons*

I dont understand how society is so [censored] up, why dont people use common sense ? The unions are a disgrace, I would use this as an excuse to clear out certain people, they are counter productive.

The government here in the Netherlands is fixing that now.
because last i heard on the news that two guy was trying to rob a shop in the morning and one got in to a fight with the owner and fell of a stair and died.
with the old rules applied the shop owner would have gone to jail but with the new laws the shop owner wasn't charged.