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How to Make a Citizen's Arrest of a War Criminal

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David Swanson
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Read the war criminal their rights, rights they have denied others:
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you."

Read the war criminal the charges against them. See above.

Ask the war criminal if they would like to say anything.

Once you have good video footage, your top priority becomes immediately getting it edited (if necessary) and online.

Turn the war criminal over to the police.

Pass out flyers to passersby.

Send statement to the media.

5. Consult a lawyer to avoid unnecessary risks of violating laws while enforcing the law. According to Wikipedia, "A citizen's arrest is an arrest made by a person who is not a sworn law enforcement official. In common law jurisdictions, the practice dates back to medieval England and the English common law, when sheriffs encouraged ordinary citizens to help apprehend law breakers. Despite the title, the arresting person does not usually have to be a citizen of the country where he is acting, as they are usually designated as any person with arrest powers.... Each state with the exception of North Carolina permits citizen arrests if the commission of felony is witnessed by the arresting citizen... The application of state laws varies widely with respect to ... felonies not witnessed by the arresting party. American citizens do not carry the authority or enjoy the legal protections of police, and are held to the principle of strict liability before the courts of civil- and criminal law including but not limited to any infringement of another's rights. Though North Carolina General Statutes have no provision for citizen's arrests, detention by private persons is permitted and apply to both civilians and police officers outside their jurisdiction. Detention, being different from an arrest in the fact that a detainee may not be transported without consent, is permitted where probable cause exists that one has committed a felony, breach of peace, physical injury to another person, or theft or destruction of property ... A person who makes a citizen's arrest could risk exposing himself to possible lawsuits or criminal charges (such as charges of impersonating police, false imprisonment, kidnapping, or wrongful arrest) if the wrong person is apprehended or a suspect's civil rights are violated." In the case of the war criminals we propose detaining, they are public figures and we have all witnessed their felonies, as detailed above.

A good source of legal advice is the National Lawyers Guild, whose permission we have not asked to post this recommendation, and which does not necessarily support this project: http://www.nlg.org

6. Be prepared to post your video online in multiple places: Youtube, Google, and convictbushcheney.org (for that last one, contact us).

7. Aquire and learn to use handcuffs.

8. Prepare flyers to hand to passersby and a statement to send to the media.

If you have more information on where these war criminals live and work please post it below and we'll add it above.

For more on holding the biggest criminals accountable, see http://convictbushcheney.org

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David Swanson is the author of "When the World Outlawed War," "War Is A Lie" and "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union." He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for the online (more...)
 
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