How to Hold a Perp for the Cops Without Getting Shot Yourself?

[Doc Safari]

When I was a kid my dad caught some guys stealing parts off of some old cars. He captured one of them and held him at gunpoint until the sheriff arrived.

Nowadays, it seems like that's a good way to get killed if the responding officers think you are the perp when they arrive.

It's impossible to rely on the dispatcher to relay the message to the officers that the good guy is the one with the gun. They may just assume that whoever is armed is the one they have come to confront.

So what do you do?

Let's say that some scumbag invades your home in the dark of the night, and as soon as confronted he surrenders. You have him lie face down on the floor with his hands behind his back. You dial 911 and explain the situation, including the fact that you, the homeowner, are the armed one, and that the perp is harmlessly kissing linoleum at your feet.

But then what?

What assurance do you have that the cops won't mistake you for the bad guy and you end up with a toe tag?


My thinking is:

1. Once you capture the perp, you escort him to as close to the front door as you can get before having him lie face down.
2. If you have zip ties in your house, have your spouse or an older child zip tie the perp's hands behind his back to secure him.
3. Once you call 911, leave the front door unlocked and open with the perp facing the front door.
4. REHOLSTER your weapon, but do so from a vantage point where the perp can't see you reholster it.
5. Wait for the police with your empty hands visible through the front door, and the perp obviously subdued and restrained for pick up.


I used to work in law enforcement, but frankly as far as capturing a burglar in my house I'm making this up as I go along.

What do you think of my setup?

Do you have a better sequence of things to do to hold the perp for the police?

[Circle_10]

I had often heard that "detaining" an intruder, particularly if you put restraints of some sort on them, could potentially get a non-LE homeowner/good guy in some legal hot water. I believe in some jurisdictions you could face kidnapping charges or some other charge related to unlawful detention. Presumably these charges would be brought by the perp, but I guess it could depend how friendly your area is to self defense.
As to how often this actually happens, I have no idea. I suspect not very often, but I wouldn't want to be the test case.

I seem to recall hearing that if you confront an intruder in your home and you can't articulate a justification to just shoot him then an there, you basically should just afford them the opportunity to flee instead of "holding" them for the police.

That doesn't mean I agree with this from an ethical standpoint, from an ethical standpoint I'm fine with shooting a fleeing intruder in the back from 50yds away, but I'm just giving an opinion on what is probably the safest bet legally.

[Doc Safari]

I had often heard that "detaining" an intruder, particularly if you put restraints of some sort on them, could potentially get a non-LE homeowner/good guy in some legal hot water. I believe in some jurisdictions you could face kidnapping charges or some other charge related to unlawful detention. Presumably these charges would be brought by the perp, but I guess it could depend how friendly your area is to self defense.
As to how often this actually happens, I have no idea. I suspect not very often, but I wouldn't want to be the test case.

I seem to recall hearing that if you confront an intruder in your home and you can't articulate a justification to just shoot him then an there, you basically should just afford them the opportunity to flee instead of "holding" them for the police.

That doesn't mean I agree with this from an ethical standpoint, from an ethical standpoint I'm fine with shooting a fleeing intruder in the back from 50yds away, but I'm just giving an opinion on what is probably the safest bet legally.

I had thought of that...and in some cases where the guy gets spooked and decides to bail out through the window I'm assuming in 99.9% of cases that should be the end of it. The cops would just be showing up to do the paperwork.

In my scenario the guy decides to surrender. Then what do you do?

Do you tell him, "You go ahead and go." ?

Isn't that just an invitation for him and his buddies to rob your house anytime they want?

(A guy I know actually experiences this. They know when he's not home and he's been robbed numerous times. I suspect if he ever catches one it could stop, but that's an unlikely scenario given where he lives and the fact that he has to keep to a regular schedule. He's tried dogs, alarms, extra locks, fencing, etc., and none of it has helped.)

[gaijin]

The scenario you present is all too plausible these days (the getting shot by cop part).

"Good reason to have a throw down or two"- he says half in jest.

[Doc Safari]

I'll add one thing: staging a crime scene is real bad juju. This ain't the 1970's.

When I worked in law enforcement, there was a guy who had shot someone in his home and "planted" a gun in the guy's hand. IIRC the forensics people had figured out the gun wasn't in the perp's hand at the time of the shoot (no blood residue on it, etc.), and charged the homeowner. (New Mexico is a state where you can't use deadly force unless you perceive that deadly force is about to be used against you. There's the whole "in fear of your life" thing but that's iffy if he other guy doesn't have a gun).

Besides, if you watch enough true-to-life CIS shows on TV, you know never to try to stage a crime scene.

[Hmac]

Even if you “let him go”, the cops are coming and they’ll be coming with their guns drawn. There is a wide variety of exciteablitly and judgment under pressure among cops. Just because the perp isn’t there doesn’t mean you’re not going to get shot anyway. In the extraordinarily unlikely event that an armed home invasion were to happen to me and the invader “surrendered”, I’d walk over to the door, open it wide and when the cops arrived I’d put the gun on the ground where they could see it and get down on my knees with my hands high. And trust to luck.

[kerplode]

Honestly, at this point, any encounter with law enforcement has the potential to end with you getting shot.

Best bet is to not be armed or have anything that looks like a weapon anywhere nearby when they show up to do the paperwork. On your knees with hands up like a good citizen!

[HeruMew]

When did our forum start spouting the concept that LEO is very likely to accidentally shoot you? (With HMACs reply, I am not stating that this is specifically worded. The concept, seems to me, that between two threads a newfound concern of being shot by LEO is making it's rounds in our community. I am stating that the "Very Likely" or "Increasing Risk" seems to be a common rhetoric between the two threads)

Media coverage, social media, and modern day instances make this appear as if this is an every day thing.

We should be able to look past the hype and see that the statistics just don't add up.

Can it happen? Sure.

The Wrong house gets no-knocked, the wrong guy gets pulled over, the wrong family gets investigated.

These things happen, and have happened. Forever.

Am I saying that it's an excuse for it to continue happening? No.

But, I am saying, that I (personally) don't feel like the risk of getting shot in my own home, or being misidentified as a threat, has increased in the last 10 years.

We have more people, more contact as population increases, and proportionally I could see the stats being very similar.

If I have someone at gunpoint, I call the police (or the family members will) and the moment the sirens and lights are obvious, I holster and keep eyes on threat. As the police arrive, clearly show your hands. And VERBALLY cue them that you are the victim: "THE ROBBER IS RIGHT HERE." And repeat it, repeat it, repeat it.

You probably will be cuffed as well. Until the police secure the scene, as an active participant, it wouldn't surprise me to be cuffed and disarmed.

Either way. While these things happen, and the shite hits the fan at times, I don't believe that we're seeing an epidemic or trending issue.

ETA: Doc, I don't mean any of my post to insult you, or be combative. Between the two threads on these types of issues, there is this building rhetoric within the community that, to me, is pure speculative feels.

To answer your main question:

What assurance do you have that the cops won't mistake you for the bad guy and you end up with a toe tag?

The same thing I tell all the feel based peoples when these discussions about knowing how to stay alive:

There is no assurance. There never is, and never will be. You do your part, the best you can, and you can still lose your life. This is applicable to every, and any, situation in life.

[Circle_10]

I
Do you tell him, "You go ahead and go." ?

Well I'd probably phrase it as "Get the **** out of my house or I'll kill you", but yeah that is essentially what you are telling the perp if you go that route. Which is kind of why I'm not crazy about it from an ethical standpoint, because you just let a known home invader go free, with no guarantee the police will catch him after the fact, a d he can either come back to your house again (maybe with more firepower and/or accomplices) or go victimize someone else. But ethics take a backseat to not getting smoked in my own home because the jittery 23yr old reserve cop was the one who happened to respond to the 911 call, or not getting sued into oblivion by the perp because I zip-tied his hands and made him lay on the kitchen floor at gunpoint.

[Hmac]

When did our forum start spouting the concept that LEO is very likely to accidentally shoot you?

Media coverage, social media, and modern day instances make this appear as if this is an every day thing.

We should be able to look past the hype and see that the statistics just don't add up.

Can it happen? Sure.

...........

ETA: Doc, I don't mean any of my post to insult you, or be combative. Between the two threads on these types of issues, there is this building rhetoric within the community that, to me, is pure speculative feels.

I don’t see where anyone in this thread, me included, ever “spouted the concept that an LEO is very likely to accidentally shoot me”.

Can it happen? You bet it can, as you observed, and does. Yes, certainly it’s statistically rare, but I’d bet that I am far more likely to get shot by the cops in that unlikely home invasion circumstance than the risks I face in any other aspect of my life. Yeah...by comparison to the rest of my life, being armed and having cops come to my house to deal with an armed intruder is going to be one of the most dangerous things I’ve ever done. If it can happen, it’s worth worrying about, right?