Police officers and other authority figures are granted a lot of power than ordinary people don’t have. They may carry weapons in situations where the average person would be expected to remain unarmed, and they have the right to detain individuals in order to enforce the law. In some cases, people with this authority begin to abuse their power. While the news has recently been filled with incidents where police officers used excessive or deadly force on the job, there are also times when they arrest someone without appropriate cause. If you believe that this may apply to your situation, you should contact a False Arrest Lawyer for a consultation.
You can’t argue that an arrest is unlawful simply based on the fact that you are innocent of a crime. If an officer were to take you into custody based on a sworn statement from someone else, even if that statement was later proven false, the law considers it to be an act that was reasonable based on his duties and the situation as he knew it at the time. You may have a case, on the other hand, if it should have been obvious at the time that there was no reasonable cause to arrest you.
Many of the cases where this has happened recently involved police officers who were claiming to enforce laws that don’t actually exist. For example, it is absolutely legal to take out your mobile phone and film the actions of an officer who is on duty when he’s in a public place and there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. There have been numerous occasions, however, where officers threatened people with arrest for filming them during protests and other public incidents, and some people actually were wrongfully taken into custody on that basis.
If you believe that you were arrested without appropriate cause, you shouldn’t take any action or talk to anyone before getting in touch with a False Arrest Lawyer. The authorities often try to close ranks and protect their own, and you need an attorney on your side who can help you to understand the law and your rights. Zaloba Edward works to defend the rights of people in the New York metropolitan area, including Long Island, and to hold the police accountable when they abuse their power at the expense of the public.
