Specifically an off the clock officer. For example, if you have a neighbor who is a LEO and they come on your property and you trespass them but they refuse to leave. Can you force them off your land or do we get into assaulting an officer territory? In this scenario no crimes are being investigated and no official police business is happening. Just a neighbor who happens to be law enforcement.
Can you physically remove a trespassing cop from your property?
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In my state yes you can. You can’t trespass them if they are actively working a scene but off duty then yes.
In my state a civil trespass can be issued to anyone, including off duty police. If the trespass had been issued to him call on duty law enforcement.
Cops whether on duty or not, can be trespassed and/or asked to leave from a person’s property. However, officers are allowed on a person’s property when there is a legal reason to do so, i.e. on duty during an investigation, serving paperwork, etc. The federal courts have made it clear that officers, while on duty, have no more rights to be on a person’s property than a girls scout selling cookies, and only in areas that can be reasonably accessed by the general public. A “knock and talk” is perfectly legal, but when consensual, officers must leave a person’s curtilage when asked to do so by the property owner or a legal representative of the property owner. Off duty cops have no more rights to ones property than any other person regardless of what they do for a living.
A neighbor who happens to be law enforcement is just like everyone else when they’re not working. Of course, they have no right to access your private property and you should handle it as you would with anyone else. One thing you can be sure about, as a LEO, he’s got access to firearms, so I would assume he’s armed. Be careful.
“Assaulting an officer” is assault on someone who is working in their capacity as an officer. It doesn’t work that way in someone’s backyard off duty.
Can law enforcement? Yes. Can Joe Schmoe? Probably not.
I can’t speak to every state, but generally speaking you cannot use force to remove someone who is only trespassing.
You can theoretically, but it’s a very risky move when you could just call 911 and have law enforcement do it.
Otherwise you risk a nightmare scenario where the LEO feels threatened and is later able to convince a jury that shooting you was the only way to escape bodily harm. Or even if they don’t, they go to prison and you’re still shot.
Grey areas produce bizarre verdicts, so try to avoid them when possible.
>Can you physically remove a trespassing cop from your property?
You can use reasonable force to remove anyone trespassing on your property, but if the officer is there for a duty related reason, they aren’t trespassing.
>In this scenario no crimes are being investigated and no official police business is happening.
… that you know of. Police are police 24 hours a day, and can recall themselves to duty at any time. Just because you think they aren’t on shift, that doesn’t mean they haven’t recalled to duty for some reason.
I recall myself to duty frequently. I might just be out shopping and observe something that warrants further enquiry. I will recall myself to duty to investigate, and then relax again when satisfied it wasn’t anything.
The point I’m making here, is that it doesn’t matter whether you think there is no police business – it only matters whether the officer thinks there is police business, and if you interfere with an officer recalled to duty, you’re breaking the law.
Technically, yes you can but the smart move is to always call on-duty police officers to deal with this.
Also, there are “degrees” of trespassing and some are arrestable and others are not. It’s best to understand the law clearly before taking actions.
Interesting question, but context is really necessary, it sounds like there’s a lot more to the story here that’s not being explained. If your cop neighbor saw you blatantly violating a law and came over to talk to you (and you didn’t want to deal with him) you don’t have a real reason to trespass him. You’d still need a law enforcement person (or your attorney via legal means) to formally trespass them. Personally, I’d have someone on duty contact a neighbor and let them handle it (using me as a witness if necessary).
Sounds like OP is mad at or doesn’t like their neighbor for one reason or another.
OP has said neighbor actually come onto your property and not left after being asked to?
I love watching Judge Boyd on YouTube. One of her shortest lessons is “If someone asks you to leave, leave.” If only everything in life were so easy. The other one is “don’t take stuff that doesn’t belong to you”.