Security officer arrested for doing his job
CHARLOTTE NC OCTOBER 14, 2022
A recent arrest of a private security officer for assault and unlawful imprisonment is very concerning on several levels.
The security officer, who was on patrol duty in a tourist area of Seattle, observed a suspicious female. As he continued to watch this person, she went behind a “trash can” on private property, and urinated in public.
The security officer witnessed what he believed to be a criminal offense, and under Washington State Law RCW.9A.16.020 thought that he could detain this person for committing a crime in his presence.
Section 4, states, “The use, attempt or offer to use force upon or toward the person of another is not unlawful whenever reasonably used by a person to detain someone who enters or remains unlawfully in a building or on real property lawfully in the possession of such person, so long as such detention is reasonable in duration and manner to investigate the reason for the detained person’s presence on the premises, and so long as the premises in question did not reasonably appear to be intended to be open to members of the public.”
Further, Washington state law does allow all private citizens to arrest a person that commits a crime, both misdemeanors, and felonies, in their presence.
However, the local police and district attorney have interrupted the statute to not include infractions or offenses where a citation or civil penalty could be issued.
In Washington State, the offense of “Urinating in Public” is generally an infraction punishable by a $250 fine.
After several people complained to police that the security officer acted aggressively against the woman who might have been homeless, police took the security officer into custody to investigate further and decided that he had committed several crimes instead of acknowledging that he was exercising his right to detain a person whom he thought had committed a crime.
“Any time we have an assault case anywhere in King County, we’re going to act on that with an urgency to review it,” Casey McNerthney, from the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, said.
The police report states that the woman had scrapes on the back of her hands, while her wrists had red marks and were swollen. Those injuries were blamed on the handcuffs, which the report said the woman was in for about an hour.
“We asked the judge to hold this defendant on $40,000 bail, the first appearance, the judge released him on his personal recognizance,” McNerthney said.
In this case, police noted in their report that the woman was detained for a civil infraction, not a crime.
The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is waiting for documents from SPD but tells KIRO 7 that could take a few days.
Although the “crime” was determined to be nothing more than a civil infraction, other ordinances and state statutes could have easily been applied to this offense.
Disorderly conduct, public indecency, public intoxication if intoxicated, and trespassing, just to name a few.
The security officer maybe should have had further training on local and state laws and better understood the difference between a civil penalty violation and a criminal charge but in looking at the facts, it’s obvious that there was no malice, and no criminal intent to commit a crime himself.
It certainly seems like the police, and the district attorney is overreaching, and are trying to send a message to private security in their area. Observe and report. Hands off!
