Citizen’s Arrests

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) has no understanding of duty or of law.  It seems that an armed group of citizen militia caught 200 illegal aliens in the act of illegally entering our nation near Sunland Park, NM, and they detained those illegal aliens until US Border Patrol agents—which those citizens called—could arrive and take charge.

In her response to this, Grisham said,

It should go without saying that regular citizens have no authority to arrest or detain anyone[.]

On the contrary, it should go without saying that regular citizens have both the authority and the duty to arrest and detain until the arrival of formally constituted authority—police or Border Patrol agents, for instance—persons committing crimes in the presence of those citizens.  It also should go without saying that that authority and that duty derive from the plain duties of citizenship.

It’s both instructive and illustrative that this Progressive-Democrat does not understand the obligations of citizenship.

2 thoughts on “Citizen’s Arrests

  1. Consider another scenario – a citizen prevents an assault on a person by forcibly preventing the assailant’s actions and preventing escape until the police arrive (often 5-8 minutes, in urban/suburban areas; much longer in rural ones). Is this, too, not a good idea?

    • Clearly. Citizens on scene must merely watch the crime run to completion, the robbery be effected, the murder(s) be done. Perhaps these church-going citizens in California should have stood by and let the woman inflict her mayhem instead of intervening and detaining her until the police arrives.
      Even self-defense is not permitted. Recall that New Mexico is the state where a rancher near the border shot an illegal alien in the behind with birdshot when the latter was trespassing on the rancher’s property because he feared for his wife’s safety. It was the rancher who went to jail.
      Grisham’s statement had no exceptions or caveats. It’s better, she says, to have those threats realized while waiting on others than it is to intervene.
      Eric Hines

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