In General
By statue any resident of Paragon City with exceptional or superhuman powers who engages in or wishes to engage in the apprehension of criminals and/or disturbers of the peace who possess exceptional or superhuman powers (hereinafter "Hero") is required to contact the registrar of super heroic works, located 6, Atlas Blvd, and provide information for registration. Unregistered individuals are strictly prohibited from actively fighting crime in Paragon city. For more information, see pamphlet S9-17, or contact the Ombudsman of Super heroic Works.
For Offenses Committed outside a Hero's Presence:
A hero who has reasonable time and opportunity to obtain an arrest warrant shall do so, and shall not make a warrantless arrest except as provided below. The authority to arrest without a warrant is entirely statutory, but heroes should exercise restraint in resorting to this authority; a hero must have probable cause to effect a warrantless arrest. Probable cause only requires evidence that reasonably shows that a person most likely committed an offense.
An officer's good faith is not sufficient. Generally suspicious conduct not suggesting a specific kind of criminal conduct, alone, is insufficient, but may be grounds for further investigation.
1. A hero need not obtain an arrest warrant if it would result in the loss or destruction of evidence, the escape of the offender, or potential bodily injury to the officer or others.
2. The request of any regular uniformed police officer or magistrate is sufficient, if there is no reason to doubt that officer has probable cause.
3. Generally, information gained from a victim or witness is sufficient, though if circumstances permit, a hero will seek corroboration of information gained from a victim or witness, before making an arrest based on that information.
Offenses Committed In a Hero's Presence:
While in the larger metropolitan area of Paragon City, a hero may arrest a person without a warrant for a felony or for an offense that breaches the peace which occurs in his presence.
A Hero shall obtain an arrest warrant if a felony is committed in the officer's presence and the suspect is not arrested within a reasonable time, under the circumstances, after the offense occurred. A delay in making the arrest is reasonable when necessary to overcome resistance by the offender, necessary for the safety of the Hero or others, or, the Hero is in fresh pursuit of the offender.
The Hero shall ensure that the person arrested knows that he is being placed under arrest. When appropriate, the Hero should read the arrested suspect the Miranda warnings. If the suspect is in custodial arrest, a Hero cannot question the suspect without first reading the Miranda warnings.
The Hero may place an unconscious, mentally ill, or injured person under arrest even though such person is incapable of understanding that he is under arrest.
Use of force:
In each individual event, lawful and proper force is restricted to only that force necessary to control and terminate unlawful resistance and to preclude any further physical attack against the Heroes or any other persons.
In general, a Hero must strive to preserve the peace, to prevent commission of offenses and to prevent suicide or self-inflicted injury; to make lawful arrests and searches, to overcome resistance to such arrests or searches and to prevent escapes from custody; and to prevent or interrupt an intrusion on or interference with the lawful possession of property.
Before an Hero may use any force against any suspect, the Hero must have probable cause to arrest that suspect, manifest his purpose to arrest and identify himself as a peace officer (unless the Hero reasonably believes that the suspect already knows his purpose and identity or unless the Hero cannot reasonably make that information known to the suspect), and give the reason for the arrest, unless impractical.
A Hero shall only apply the minimum practical force, and exhaust every reasonable means before escalating to a higher and more severe level of force, where levels of force include: Hero's presence, verbal commands, physical strength and skill, nonlethal combat methods, lethal combat methods.
A Hero has no obligation to retreat or back down before resorting to the approved use of force. However, if it would not increase the risks to himself or others, a Hero should consider retreat or withdrawal where delay (e.g., to secure assistance) could increase the likelihood of a peaceful arrest.
Heroes shall attempt all reasonable means of apprehension and control within their command before resorting to the use of lethal force. However, a Hero shall not unreasonably endanger himself in applying these rules in actual situations. Caution shall be exercised for the protection of other life and property whenever any power or weapon is used. Any incident involving a Hero's use of lethal force will be reported and documented with the office of Heroic Works.
Heroes may use deadly force to defend themselves or other persons from what the Hero reasonably perceives as an immediate risk of death or serious bodily injury, or to effect an arrest or prevent an escape when an officer reasonably believes the suspect or escapee has taken or endangered human life, or will endanger human life and alternative means have been attempted or would involve a risk of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or other persons.
Most organized and/or superhuman crime in Paragon city involves unusual force and/or military grade weapons, at the current time, and the city maintains a bulletin detailing known criminal elements in Paragon City, and whether use of lethal force in apprehension of different groups is considered justifiable by police experts. Please see pamphlet N5-05.
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Heh, pretty clever, nice work.
Any chance of a revisit to this? The 2nd CCFA of 1952 deals with Supergroups and deputization. Anyone?
I just don't normally write anything remotely touching on modern police procedure. So, I've been thinking, I just don't know enough about how cops handle arrests. Here's what I found.
Arrest Procedure, from and paraphrased from an online Lubbock TX Police Procedural manual, particularly things that seemed relevant if there were a formal recognition that registered civilians had the same rights to affect arrests that officers do:
An officer who has reasonable time and opportunity to obtain an arrest warrant shall do so. An officer shall not make a warrantless arrest except as provided. ... Although the authority to arrest without a warrant is entirely statutory, an officer should exercise restraint in resorting to this authority.
An officer need not obtain an arrest warrant if it would result in the loss or destruction of evidence, the escape of the offender, or potential bodily injury to the officer or others.
Probable cause only requires evidence that resonably shows that a person most likely committed an offense.
If circumstances permit, an officer will seek corroborataion of information gained from a victim or witness, before making an arrest based on that information.
The request of another officer is sufficient, if there is no reason to doubt that officer has probable cause.
Generally suspicious conduct not suggesting a specific kind of criminal conduct, alone, is insufficient, but may be grounds for further investigation. An officer's good faith is not sufficient.
Offenses Commited In an Officer's Presence:
While outside his jurisdiction but within the state, an officer may arrest a person without a warrant for a felony or for an offense that breaches the peace which occurs in his presence.
An officer shall obtain an arrest warrant if a felony is committed in the officer's presence and the suspect is not arrested within a reasonable time, under the circumstances, after the offense occurred. A delay in making the arrest is reasonable when necessary to overcome resistance by the offender, necessary for the safety of the officer or others, or, the officer is in fresh pursuit of the offender.
The officer shall ensure that the person arrested knows that he is being placed under arrest. When appropriate, the officer should read the arrested suspect the Miranda warnings. If the suspect is in custodial arrest, an officer cannot question the suspect without first reading the Miranda warnings.
The officer may place an unconscious, mentally ill, or injured person under arrest even though such person is incapable of understanding that he is under arrest.
Use of force:
In each individual event, lawful and proper force is restricted to only that force necessary to control and terminate unlawful resistance and to preclude any further physical attack against the police officers or any other persons.
In general, an officer must strive to preserve the peace, to prevent commission of offenses and to prevent suicide or self-inflicted injury; to make lawful arrests and searches, to overcome resistance to such arrests or searches and to prevent escapes from custody; and to prevent or interrupt an intrusion on or interference with the lawful possession of property.
Before an officer may use any force against any suspect, the officer must have probable cause to arrest that suspect, manifest his purpose to arrest and identify himself as a peace officer (unless the officer reasonably believes that the suspect already knows his purpose and identity or unless the officer cannot reasonably make that information known to the suspect), and give the reason for the arrest, unless impractical.
An officer shall only apply the minimum practical force, and exhaust every reasonable means before escalating to a higher and more severe level of force, where levels of force include: Officer presence, verbal commands, physical strength and skill, chemical agents, authorized baton, authorized service revolver or other weapon with authorized ammunition.
However, an officer may use any unauthorized weapon (or use any weapon in an unauthorized manner) if emergency circumstances make it necessary to do so.
An officer has no obligation to retreat or back down before resorting to the approved use of force. However, if it would not increase the risks to himself or others, an officer should consider retreat or withdrawal where delay (e.g., to secure assistance) could increase the likelihood of a peaceful arrest.
Officers shall attempt all reasonable means of apprehension and control within their command before resorting to the use of deadly force. However, an officer shall not unreasonably endanger himself in applying these rules in actual situations. Caution shall be exercised for the protection of other life and property whenever a weapon is discharged. Any incident involving an officer's use of deadly force or discharge of a firearm will be thoroughly, investigated and reviewed by the Firearms Review Board.
Officers may use deadly force to defend themselves or other persons from what the officer reasonably perceives as an immediate risk of death or serious bodily injury, or to effect an arrest or prevent an escape when an officer reasonably believes the suspect or escapee has taken or endangered human life, or will endanger human life and alternative means have been attempted or would involve a risk of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or other persons.
So, doubtless there are better sites for this kind of info. Still. Among the things that stand out for me...
One is that in an awful lot of door missions, which are definite "go here and arrest these guys" but are not fresh persuit situations, warrants really need to have been obtained beforehand.
Another is that our katana/broadsword/spines/axe friends and their lethal damage have a rather heavier burden than others. Fortunately though, criminals in Paragon city normally draw a firearm on you when you approach. Just make absolutely sure you wait until you're *in* aggro range, not just what appears to be speaking distance, before identifying yourself!
Also, on the rare occasion a high level lethal damage type hunts badges in PP or is exemplared waaay down, to the point where villains straight-out run away, apprehending them with a swordstroke is clearly excessive force ^_^.
Another thing is, I find it dubious that the rule about taking another officer's request to make an arrest sufficient, would make the say-so of a civilian contact or a another hero sufficient. However, any mission given you by a security cheif, cop-in-need-of-rescue, or by Blue Steel, if he gave 'em, would be fair game.
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