united-states police self-defense
Am I legally able to use lethal force against a police officer in defense of another?
<p>Hypothetically, let's say I come across a police officer about to discharge his firearm at a person laying face down on the ground, hands in my clear view, clearly (to me) unarmed and apparently complying with the officer's instructions.  Am I legally able to use my own firearm to use lethal force against the officer to protect the apparently unarmed man?  How do laws that allow me to use lethal force against the general population apply when the individual I would be defending from <em>is</em> a police officer?</p>

<p>Am I obligated to do anything before firing, such as instruct the officer to drop his weapon?</p>

<p>I'll use Washington state as my source, but laws will be similar in other states. <a href="http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=9A.76&amp;full=true">RCW 9A.76.020</a> outlaws obstructing a law enforcement officer, which this would be: it is a gross misdemeanor. In using lethal force, you would have committed first degree murder, under <a href="http://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9A.32&amp;full=true">RCW 9A.32.030</a>. There is a defense that can be used, per <a href="http://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9A.16&amp;full=true">RCW 9A.16.050</a>, that homicide is justified when:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>In the lawful defense of the slayer, or his or her husband, wife,
  parent, child, brother, or sister, or of <em>any other person in his or
  her presence</em> or company, when there is reasonable ground to apprehend
  a design on the part of the person slain to commit a felony or to do
  some great personal injury to the slayer or to any such person, and
  there is imminent danger of such design being accomplished.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Law enforcement officers have access to justifiable homicide defenses as well under 9A.16.040, for example</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>(b) When necessarily used by a peace officer to overcome actual
  resistance to the execution of the legal process, mandate, or order of
  a court or officer, or in the discharge of a legal duty</p>
</blockquote>

<p>or</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>(c) When necessarily used by a peace officer or person acting under
  the officer's command and in the officer's aid: (i) To arrest or
  apprehend a person who the officer reasonably believes has committed,
  has attempted to commit, is committing, or is attempting to commit a
  felony</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The outcome of the case would hinge in part on whether the officer's arrest and use of force was lawful. To take two extremes, if the guy on the ground had just killed a dozen people and was aiming to rack up another dozen kills, the officer's arrest would almost certainly be held to be legal and his degree of force justified. Your personal belief that the suspect was compliant and unarmed might be refuted by the facts. On the other hand, if the guy on the ground had slept with the officer's sister and the officer wanted to rid the world of this vermin, then the arrest and force would almost certainly be held to be not legal.</p>

<p>It can be legal to use deadly force to resist unlawful arrest. See <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/177/529/case.html">John Bad Elk v. United States, 177 U.S. 529</a>, where the court held that</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>if a party resisted arrest by an officer without warrant, and who had
  no right to arrest him, and if, in the course of that resistance, the
  officer was killed, the offence of the party resisting arrest would be
  reduced from what would have been murder, if the officer had had the
  right to arrest, to manslaughter</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The court also said</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which
  naturally accompanies an attempted arrest that is resisted, the law
  looks with very different eyes upon the transaction when the officer
  had the right to make the arrest from what it does if the officer had
  no such right. What might be murder in the first case might be nothing
  more than manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no
  offense had been committed.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This ruling has been somewhat eroded, in <a href="http://openjurist.org/409/f2d/474/united-states-v-simon">US v. Simon</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>We recognize that law enforcement officers are frequently called on to
  make arrests without warrants and should not be held, so far as their
  personal security is concerned, to a nicety of distinctions between
  probable cause and lack of probable cause in differing situations of
  warrantless arrests. It is for this reason we believe that the force
  of John Bad Elk has been diminished</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The upshot of this is that (assuming no warrant), leeway is granted to officers in assessing probable cause (I'm not sure anybody really knows at a general conceptual level what constitutes "probable cause". The court seems to imply that the remote hearsay used as the basis for the arrest would not have been sufficient for a warrant, but it was "reasonable grounds" for believing accused had committed a crime).</p>

<p>Your premise that the officer is about to shoot would have to be substantiated by some fact, such as a declaration "I'm gonna kill you". Otherwise, your belief that the officer was about to commit unjustified murder would itself be unjustified. With better fleshing out of the circumstances, you could manufacture a justified-homicide scenario.</p>

<p>Absent a special contract, <em>nobody</em> has a legal <em>obligation</em> to defend another person from assault or battery &ndash; <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/a/7902/10">not even police</a>.</p>

<p>The use of lethal force can be justified <strong>if one reasonably believes it is necessary to prevent imminent (and unjustified) death or great bodily harm to oneself or another</strong>.</p>

<p>As usual, the "reasonable person" test would be applied by the judicial system, potentially in an adversarial court trial, to determine whether your use of lethal force was justified.  The results would be very specific to the facts presented and their interpretation by a judge and/or jury.</p>

<p>Therefore, the remainder of this answer is simply my opinion and conjecture:</p>

<p>Would a reasonable person think that a person pointing a gun at another person constitutes an <em>imminent threat</em>?  Without additional information, no.  There are all sorts of legal reasons to brandish a gun, and very few of them result in the discharge of a firearm.  Furthermore, if the person brandishing the gun is a police officer a "reasonable person" would have further reason to believe that the officer is exercising his lawful duties, and <em>not</em> engaged in unlawful assault.</p>

<p>Under what circumstances might it be reasonable to shoot an officer holding a person at gunpoint?  You would have to show reasonable belief that:</p>

<ol>
<li>The officer had an imminent intent to fire his weapon.</li>
<li>The officer would <em>not</em> be justified in doing so.</li>
</ol>

<p>It is hard to imagine a scenario in which you could reasonably form those beliefs.  However, <em>if</em> you observed the officer discharge his weapon, <em>and</em> he <em>continued</em> his armed assault, <em>and</em> it was <em>clear</em> to you that he was shooting at a person that posed no immediate threat to another person, then it's conceivable your use of lethal force would be considered justified.  (But what if you had just come across a poorly controlled movie set?  Or what if the "apparently unarmed man" was about to trigger a remote bomb detonator?  You could still be found civilly or criminally liable for the consequences of your use of force.)</p>

<p>Another hypothetical scenario: If it was known that a dangerous criminal was at large impersonating a police officer and shooting people, and you had reasonable confidence that the gunman you found was that criminal, you might be justified in shooting him.  But again, unless you observed him actually discharging his weapon towards a person, you would have a hard time arguing that the peril was <em>imminent and unavoidable</em>.  That's why many defensive shootings are preceded by a verbal warning (e.g., "Stop or I'll shoot!").</p>

<p>You are asking what you could legally do if a police officer is just about to murder a person. That situation is so out of order that what is legal doesn't really matter. It's not a situation where the law will protect you. </p>

<p>Instructing that officer to drop his weapon would obviously be a very, very bad idea. Guess what an officer who is going to shoot an unarmed person is going to do to someone who has a gun and is shouting at him. And guess what happens to you if you shoot a police officer if you get caught, no matter whether this was legally self defence or not. </p>
