Police, Civil Liability, and the Law
A. Police accountability to the public has increased over the past four decades due to notorious examples of policing abuse, such as the Rodney King case.
B. Lawsuits filed against police are on the rise and threaten both individual officers and police agencies.
C. The purpose of this chapter is to outline state and federal law that applies to officer liability. This discussion also includes the risk of liability for police agencies and police supervisors related to the actions of their officers.
A. A variety of trots exist under state law, with respect to police liability.
1. A tort equals a ôcivil wrongö (Del Carmen and Smith, 1996, 181)
2. Alleged victims of police abuse typically charge officers with ôbreach of dutyö and sue for ôcompensatoryö (monetary) damages and/or punitive damages to ôpunishö officer wrongdoing (Del Carmen et al. 1996, 181).
1. Assault occurs when an officer intentionally and without ôlegal justificationö places a suspect in fear of bodily harm (Del Carmen et al. 1996, 182).
2. Battery occurs when ôintentionalö or ôunlawfulö touching of one person by another happens without legal justification (Del Carmen et al. 1996, 182).
1. False arrest and false imprisonment occur when an officer arrests a suspect without a ôsufficient legal basisö (Del Carmen et al. 1996, 182).
2. False imprisonment is ôrestrictingàfreedom of movementö of a suspect illegally (Del Carmen et al. 1996, 182).
D. Malicious Prosecution and Abuse of Process
1. Malicious prosecution occurs when an officer initiates a prosecution of a person, the person is cleared of any wrongdoing, and the person can prove that the officer had ômalicious intentö and did not have ôprobable causeö to initiate the prosecution (Del Carmen et al. 1996, 182).
2. Abuse of process is similar to
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