Citizen's Arrests: Possible Abuse of Power?

- by Sarah Hickman

As discussed in lecture, we are permitted to make a citizen’s arrest if we find ourselves in the presence/have knowledge of a committed crime. Professor Musheno helped outlined the difference when executing a citizen’s arrest for a misdemeanor situation versus that of a felony crime in his March 6th lecture. He conveyed, that in order to execute a citizen’s arrest for a misdemeanor crime, the crime would need to be committed in your presence. As for a felony crime, you would only need probable cause of that crime in order to make a citizen’s arrest. Further, Professor Musheno discussed how citizen’s arrests extend to the corporate sphere; he used Target as an example. We discussed how a corporation like Target, may find that they have employed an overzealous employee who executes citizen’s arrests too frequently. An example could be: An employee who places a customer under citizen’s arrest for opening a bag of chips while they finish up their shopping list. Even though many people are guilty of this crime, and typically the outcome ends with the purchase of the snack at the end of the shopping excursion, a corporation may experience an employee who seeks out these individuals to simply execute the power of a citizen’s arrest.

This being said, we were able to identify a similar characteristic in both the civilian/citizen sphere and the corporate sphere when discussing citizen’s arrests. This characteristic can be identified as power, or for the concerns of this blog post: the possible abuse of power. For the civilian/citizen sphere, the right to place someone under citizen’s arrest exceeds the power that we typically possess from day to day. Though we all have access to this right, not many will utilize it in their lifetime. However, this right also poses the risk of creating a citizen whom executes this right on their fellow citizens overzealously. Even without the badge that marks a proper law official, they may feel it’s their civic duty to take on the role as a law enforcer. Or further, for some, they mind find this spike in power to be addictive.

I feel that the execution of a citizen’s arrest provides the civilian/citizen sphere as well as the corporate sphere much room for error, with little recourse. In this light, a citizen’s arrest can seem extremely risky when dealing with criminal crimes, especially felonious ones. Both spheres, ultimately allow for an individual to become power-hungry and pose the threat of producing overzealous citizens that mistake themselves for proper law enforcement.

An article that highlights an abuse of the citizen’s arrest in the civilian/citizen sphere was posted to the online Inquisitr on March 27, 2014. It would appear, that during a Law and Literature class at George Mason University in Arlington, an intruder attempted to place Professor Tyler Cowen under citizen’s arrest. The intruder pepper sprayed the Professor in the face, and tried to place him in handcuffs. Fortunately, a student who was also an off duty cop, assisted the Professor in restraining and detaining the intruder until cops could arrive in response to the assault. As of now, details regarding why the intruder tried to place the Professor under citizen’s arrest is still unclear. Some irony can be found in this article, due to the Law and Literature lecture material at the time of the attack. Given that the course was law based, Professor Cowen had recently been lecturing on vigilantism. Supposedly, this fooled many of the students into thinking that the attack may have been a planned hoax/example, which encouraged many to remain seated and calm.

I found that this article highlighted the possible abuse of power when executing a citizen’s arrest. Though the intruder’s motives are still unknown, the actions he took were clearly a violation of proper citizen’s arrest protocol. The intruder not only assaulted the Professor with pepper spray, he also interrupted the class, which indicates that he wasn’t presently witnessing a misdemeanor occur. Ironically, the situation wasn’t perceived as under control until an off duty cop assisted in restraining the intruder.

Source:

http://www.inquisitr.com/1190375/professor-pepper-sprayed-in-university-classroom-during-citizens-arrest/