Some of the hardest calls I get are from families whose loved one walked into a jail alive and came out in a coffin. A son who needed his medication and never got it. A brother who told the deputies he could not breathe. A daughter left alone in a cell when everyone could see she was in crisis. The official story is almost always the same: nothing could have been done. After four decades of these cases, I can tell you that is rarely true.

Can you sue the police or a county for a death in a California jail?

Yes. When a person dies in a California jail because officials were deliberately indifferent to a serious medical need or failed to protect them from a known danger, the family can sue the responsible officers and the county under federal civil rights law and California state law for wrongful death.

A jail does not get to be a place where the Constitution stops applying. When someone is in custody, the government has taken away their ability to care for themselves, and in exchange the law requires the government to meet their basic needs, including medical care and reasonable safety. When officials ignore that duty and a person dies, the family has a right to answers and to accountability in court.

These cases run on two tracks at once. The federal track uses 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to sue for the violation of the decedent’s constitutional rights. The state track uses California’s wrongful death statute, Code of Civil Procedure § 377.60, along with a survival action under § 377.30 on behalf of the estate.

What does “deliberate indifference” mean in a jail death case?

Deliberate indifference means jail officials knew of a serious risk to a person’s health or safety and failed to take reasonable steps to address it. It is more than ordinary negligence. It is the legal standard that governs most claims for denied medical care and failure to protect people in custody.

The phrase comes from the Supreme Court’s decision in Estelle v. Gamble, which held that deliberate indifference to the serious medical needs of an incarcerated person violates the Constitution. The exact constitutional source depends on the person’s status, and that distinction matters in California’s federal courts.

Convicted prisoners are protected by the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Pretrial detainees, people who have been arrested but not convicted, are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. In Castro v. County of Los Angeles, the Ninth Circuit confirmed that a pretrial detainee’s failure-to-protect claim is judged by an objective standard, which can be easier to prove than the subjective test applied to convicted prisoners. Since most people who die in county jails were awaiting trial and never convicted of anything, this distinction frequently works in the family’s favor.

What kinds of jail deaths can lead to a lawsuit?

The most common in-custody death claims involve denial of medical or mental-health care, failure to protect a detainee from violence, failure to prevent a foreseeable suicide, and dangerous restraint practices. Each can support a civil rights and wrongful death claim when officials ignored a known, serious risk.

1. Denial of medical care. A detainee with a known condition, a heart problem, diabetes, withdrawal, a serious injury, is left without treatment until it is too late.
2. Failure to protect. Officials place a vulnerable person where they can be attacked, or ignore clear threats, and the detainee is killed or fatally injured.
3. Mental-health and suicide cases. A person in obvious crisis is left unmonitored without the safeguards that jail policies require.
4. Dangerous restraint and force. Prolonged prone restraint, positional asphyxia, or other excessive force used on someone who is already in custody and not a genuine threat.

Who can file a wrongful death lawsuit in California?

Under California Code of Civil Procedure § 377.60, a wrongful death claim may be brought by the decedent’s surviving spouse, domestic partner, children, and the issue of deceased children. If there are none, the right passes to those who would inherit under California’s intestate succession laws, and in some cases to dependents.

California is strict about who may sue. The statute lists the eligible heirs, and only those people, or the decedent’s personal representative acting on their behalf, may bring the claim. A separate survival action under § 377.30 lets the estate recover for the harm the decedent suffered before death, and it is the vehicle that can carry punitive damages against individual wrongdoers. We almost always file both together.

How long do you have to sue for a jail death in California?

Move quickly. A federal Section 1983 claim in California generally must be filed within two years. But if you intend to sue a county or its employees on California state-law claims, you usually must first file a government claim within six months of the death. Missing that six-month deadline can bar your state claims.

This is the trap that destroys otherwise strong cases. The federal civil rights claim carries a two-year window, but the California Government Claims Act requires a written claim to the public entity, often within six months of the death, before you can sue on state-law theories such as wrongful death against the county. The grief is overwhelming and the months pass fast. The single most important thing a family can do is talk to a civil rights attorney long before that six-month clock runs out.

A note on one statutory wrinkle: California Government Code § 845.6 limits public-entity liability for failure to summon medical care to fairly narrow circumstances. That is one of several reasons these cases need a lawyer who knows where the immunities are and how to plead around them, including through federal claims that the immunity does not touch.

Can you sue the county itself, not just the officers?

Yes. Beyond suing individual officers, a family can hold a county or city directly liable under Section 1983 when the death resulted from an official policy, an unconstitutional custom or practice, or a failure to train or supervise jail staff. These are known as Monell claims.

This matters for two reasons. First, individual officers can raise qualified immunity, and that defense can be hard to overcome. A claim against the county itself, under the Supreme Court’s decision in Monell v. Department of Social Services, is not subject to qualified immunity. Second, jail deaths are frequently not one-off failures; they are the predictable result of chronic understaffing, broken medical-intake systems, inadequate suicide-prevention protocols, or a culture of ignoring detainee complaints. When the death traces to those systemic problems, the entity is on the hook.

Proving a Monell claim takes work. We look for the pattern, prior deaths, prior complaints, internal audits, grand jury reports on the jail, and policies that were either unconstitutional on their face or ignored in practice. In the larger county jail systems, that pattern evidence is often there for a lawyer who knows where to find it. This is also why the survival action and the wrongful death claim are pleaded alongside the federal claims: each reaches different defendants and different categories of damages.

Our Southern California in-custody and failure-to-protect work

Our firm has handled custody and failure-to-protect matters across Southern California for decades, with results that include settlements for failure to protect people held in county jails. You can review verdicts and settlements on our case results page. Many of the largest county-jail systems we deal with are in the Inland Empire; if your loss occurred there, see our Riverside County and San Bernardino County pages.

Talk to a California jail-death and civil rights attorney

If your family member died in a California jail and you were told nothing could have been done, you deserve an independent look at what really happened. I have been holding police and counties accountable throughout California since 1984. Contact Steering Law in Newport Beach. We represent families across all of Southern California.

About the Author

Jerry L. Steering, Esq. has been suing police officers and defending bogus “resistance offense” criminal cases throughout California since 1984. A graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law (1984), he is admitted to practice in California, Georgia, the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits, and the United States Supreme Court. His police-misconduct cases have produced settlements and verdicts in the millions, and his work has been featured on ABC News, CNN, Good Morning America, Dateline NBC, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. He practices from Newport Beach and serves clients across Southern California.

Sources

• Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976)
• Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978)
• Castro v. County of Los Angeles, 833 F.3d 1060 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc)
• California Code of Civil Procedure § 377.60 (wrongful death) — California Legislative Information
• California Code of Civil Procedure § 377.30 (survival action)
• California Government Code § 845.6 (failure to summon medical care)
• California Government Code § 911.2 (six-month government claim deadline)
• 42 U.S.C. § 1983 — Cornell Legal Information Institute

Jerry L. Steering, Esq.

Steering Law is a California-based civil rights and criminal defense firm led by Jerry L. Steering, Esq. The firm focuses on police misconduct cases, including excessive force, false arrest, malicious prosecution, contempt of cop incidents, and 42 U.S.C. §1983 civil rights actions, while also handling serious criminal defense matters. Steering Law is dedicated to protecting clients’ constitutional rights and delivering justice for individuals who have been wronged by law enforcement.

steeringlaw.com/

Yes. A police dog is a use of force, the same as a baton or a Taser. When a K-9 is released on someone who is surrendering, already restrained, not resisting, or suspected only of a minor offense, the bite can be excessive force under the Fourth Amendment. You can sue the handler and the agency under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and California law.

Most people think a police dog bite is an unfortunate but legally simple event. It is not. A trained patrol dog can cause catastrophic, disfiguring injuries: torn muscle, severed nerves, exposed bone. I have seen wounds from a bite measured in seconds that took years of surgery to repair. The law does not treat that as a minor scratch, and neither should you.

When does a police dog bite cross the line into excessive force?

It crosses the line when the bite is unreasonable under the circumstances: the person was not a serious threat, the suspected crime was minor, no warning was given, or the dog was allowed to keep biting after the person stopped resisting. The Ninth Circuit has repeatedly held that a prolonged or unwarned K-9 bite against someone who has surrendered can violate the Constitution.

The question a court asks is the one from Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989): was the force objectively reasonable? A dog deployed to find and hold a fleeing, armed felony suspect in the dark is one thing. A dog turned loose on a teenager hiding in a backyard over a minor call, with no warning and no chance to give up, is something very different.

The controlling law in our circuit is clear on the part that matters most. In Rosenbaum v. City of San Jose, 107 F.4th 919 (9th Cir. 2024), the court held that officers were not entitled to qualified immunity where a police dog continued biting a suspect for more than twenty seconds after he had surrendered and lay face-down with his arms outstretched. (Ninth Circuit opinion (PDF)) That decision rests on a line of cases, including Watkins and Hernandez v. Town of Gilbert, establishing that an officer cannot direct a dog to keep biting a person who has fully surrendered and is under the officers’ control. The initial release of the dog and the duration of the bite are analyzed separately, which means a bite can start lawfully and become unlawful the instant the person gives up and the handler does nothing.

What factors decide a police K-9 case?

Courts and juries focus on concrete facts: how serious the suspected crime was, whether the person was actively resisting or fleeing, whether a warning was given before the dog was released, how long the bite lasted after the person submitted, and whether the dog even found the right person. Each can turn a defensible deployment into a violation.

Here is what handlers are trained to do, and what their own policies usually require: give a clear, loud warning before releasing the dog; give the person a genuine chance to surrender; and call the dog off the instant the person complies. The phrase agencies use is “bite and hold.” The legal trouble almost always lives in the hold, when a dog is left clamped onto someone who is already face-down and screaming that they give up. The Ninth Circuit’s own words capture it: the excessive duration of a bite, or an officer’s improper encouragement of a continued attack, can be a constitutional violation regardless of whether the initial bite was justified.

I have handled cases where the dog found the wrong person entirely, where no warning was ever given, and where the handler stood and watched. Those are not close calls. They are the cases that should never have happened, and they are exactly the cases the agencies most want to settle quietly.

Does an officer have to warn you before releasing a police dog?

In most situations, yes. Giving a clear warning and a chance to surrender before deploying a K-9 is a core part of reasonable practice, and courts treat the absence of a warning as a significant factor. When an officer skips the warning and sends a dog after someone who never knew it was coming, that omission can push an otherwise close case over the line.

The warning is not a technicality. It is the moment that separates a lawful apprehension from an ambush. A person hiding in fear, who has no idea a dog is about to be released, is given no opportunity to do the one thing that would have ended the encounter without injury: come out with their hands up. I have seen body-camera footage where the handler gives no warning at all, or mumbles something no human could have heard, and then releases the dog into a dark yard. When the person turns out to be unarmed, or turns out to be the wrong person entirely, that silence becomes the centerpiece of the case.

And the wrong-person problem is real. Dogs follow scent and movement, not arrest warrants. I have handled matters where the dog bit a neighbor, a bystander, or a resident of the very home the police were searching. The agency cannot justify a serious injury by pointing to a suspect who was never there. When the person bitten committed no crime at all, the reasonableness analysis is not close.

What evidence matters most in a police dog bite case?

The agency’s own records are the heart of the case: K-9 deployment logs, the handler’s bite reports, the dog’s training and certification records, body-worn and dash-camera footage, and dispatch audio. Your medical records and photographs matter enormously, as does the precise timeline of how long the dog stayed on you after you surrendered.

I push hard and early for these records, because departments track K-9 bites far more closely than the public realizes. Many agencies keep detailed bite statistics and internal use-of-force reviews precisely because they know these deployments generate lawsuits. Those documents can reveal a pattern, a poorly trained dog, or a handler with a history of letting the bite run long. That is often the difference between a case a city quietly resolves and one it wrongly believes it can bury.

If you were bitten by a police dog anywhere in Southern California, including here in Orange County and the Newport Beach area, do not assume it was “just how it goes.” Get the wounds documented, preserve what you can, and talk to a civil rights lawyer before you sign anything the agency puts in front of you.

Jerry L. Steering, Esq.

Steering Law is a California-based civil rights and criminal defense firm led by Jerry L. Steering, Esq. The firm focuses on police misconduct cases, including excessive force, false arrest, malicious prosecution, contempt of cop incidents, and 42 U.S.C. §1983 civil rights actions, while also handling serious criminal defense matters. Steering Law is dedicated to protecting clients’ constitutional rights and delivering justice for individuals who have been wronged by law enforcement.

steeringlaw.com/

Do California police officers have to identify themselves?

It depends on the situation. California has no single statute requiring every officer to give a name and badge number on demand in all circumstances, but many department policies require it, and uniformed officers are generally expected to display visible identification. When an officer refuses to identify themselves, especially during a use of force or an arrest, it is a red flag, and it matters in a later case.

I have been doing this since 1984, and an officer who will not give you a name is often an officer who expects to do something he does not want traced back to him. A badge number is not a courtesy. It is accountability. When it goes missing, that is rarely an accident, and a jury can be told exactly why an officer might want to be anonymous in the moment he is putting his hands on someone.

What should you do if an officer won’t give a name or badge number?

Ask once, calmly, and then stop. Note the patrol car number, the location, the date, and the time. Look for body-worn cameras and other officers who can be identified. Find witnesses and preserve any video. Then call a civil rights attorney, who can use records requests and litigation to compel the agency to disclose who was involved.

Arguing about it on the street is not worth a “resistance offense” charge under Penal Code § 148(a)(1). The practical reality is that you do not need the officer to cooperate on the street in order to identify him later. I have identified plenty of officers who believed they were anonymous, through dispatch logs, shift and scheduling records, body-camera metadata, radio traffic, and the agency’s own paper trail. The badge can be hidden in the moment. It cannot be hidden in a lawsuit, where the agency is compelled to answer. So do not let a refusal to identify discourage you, and do not let it provoke you into conduct that hands them a charge.

Can California police wear masks while on duty?

This is changing, and it is not yet settled. In 2025 the Legislature passed Senate Bill 627, the “No Secret Police Act,” which restricts officers from concealing their faces while performing their duties and requires agencies to post a written facial-covering policy. As of this writing the law is being challenged in court, so its final shape is uncertain. Check the current status before relying on it.

Here is the background, because it explains why this became a fight. As reported, SB 627 prohibits federal and local law enforcement officers from wearing face masks while conducting their duties, and requires any law enforcement agency operating in California to maintain and publicly post a written policy limiting facial coverings by July 1, 2026. (LAAPOA) The same reporting notes that the Trump administration sued to block the law and that police unions opposed it. So this is genuinely in motion, and I am not going to tell you it is settled when it is not. When the courts resolve it, I will update this page.

Why does a masked, anonymous officer matter to your case? Because identification is the spine of accountability. If you cannot name the officer who hurt you, you cannot easily sue the officer who hurt you. The entire “officer’s safety” vocabulary the system leans on has a way of expanding into anonymity, and anonymity is precisely where misconduct hides. A law that forces officers to show their faces is not anti-police. It is pro-accountability, which only threatens the officers who have something to hide.

Can you record an officer who refuses to identify themselves?

Yes. In California and across the Ninth Circuit, you have a clearly established First Amendment right to record police performing their duties in public. Recording an officer who will not give a name is often the single most valuable thing you can do, because the video preserves the encounter, the patrol car, and the officer’s face even when the badge is hidden.

I tell people this constantly: the camera in your pocket is a better witness than your memory will ever be. Officers who refuse to identify themselves are counting on the absence of a record. A clear video defeats that. It captures the time, the place, the number of officers, the vehicle, and the conduct, and it does so in a form a jury can watch for itself. Keep a reasonable distance, do not interfere, and let the recording run. The right to record is settled law, and the agencies know it, which is part of why some officers are so hostile to the lens.

A word of caution that I give every client. The street is not the place to win the argument about identification. If you are being arrested, do not physically resist, because that hands the prosecutor a “resistance offense” charge that can be used to muddy your later civil claim. Comply, record what you can, stay calm, and fight the unlawful conduct later, in a forum where the agency has to answer under oath. That is where the badge comes off the anonymous officer.

How does anonymity affect a civil rights lawsuit?

Anonymity makes a case harder at the start but rarely fatal. Identifying the right officer is a threshold step in any § 1983 or state-law claim, and agencies sometimes resist it. But the tools of litigation, including records requests, subpoenas, and depositions, are built to pierce that wall, and a seasoned civil rights attorney expects the fight.

The lesson for you on the street is simple. Preserve every scrap of identifying information you safely can, because the more you gather in the moment, the faster your lawyer can put a name to the conduct. Patrol car numbers, the time and place, the number of officers, the direction they came from, and any video are all threads that lead back to a name. I have built entire cases out of exactly those threads.

If an officer refused to identify himself, or was concealing his identity, when he violated your rights in Orange County, including Irvine and the surrounding cities, or anywhere in Southern California, talk to someone who has spent decades forcing these agencies to put names to conduct.

Jerry L. Steering, Esq.

Steering Law is a California-based civil rights and criminal defense firm led by Jerry L. Steering, Esq. The firm focuses on police misconduct cases, including excessive force, false arrest, malicious prosecution, contempt of cop incidents, and 42 U.S.C. §1983 civil rights actions, while also handling serious criminal defense matters. Steering Law is dedicated to protecting clients’ constitutional rights and delivering justice for individuals who have been wronged by law enforcement.

steeringlaw.com/

They are two different claims that often arise from the same shooting. An excessive force claim is the constitutional claim, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, that the officer used unreasonable deadly force. A wrongful death claim is the state-law claim that lets surviving family members recover for the loss of their loved one. After a fatal shooting, a family usually pursues both at once.

I have handled these cases for decades, and families are almost always told the wrong thing first. They are told to wait for the “investigation.” They are told the officer was cleared, so there is nothing to do. That is how the clock runs out on people while they are still grieving. Let me explain how these claims actually work, because the distinction is not academic and the deadlines are unforgiving.

Who can file each claim in California?

The excessive force (§ 1983) claim belongs to the person who was killed and survives to their estate, usually pursued by a successor in interest. The wrongful death claim belongs to specific surviving relatives, generally the spouse, domestic partner, and children, and in some cases the parents. Because they recover different things, families typically file them together.

The constitutional claim is governed by deadly-force law. Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985), held that deadly force against a fleeing suspect is generally unreasonable unless the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious harm. (Cornell LII) Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), supplies the broader reasonableness test. California’s Penal Code § 835a, strengthened by AB 392 in 2019, requires that deadly force be necessary and imposes a duty to consider de-escalation, a stricter standard than the federal floor. (California Legislative Information) And the 2025 decision in Barnes v. Felix directs courts to examine the officer’s conduct leading up to the shooting, not just the final instant.

The wrongful death claim itself is a creature of state statute, California Code of Civil Procedure § 377.60, which defines who may sue. (California Legislative Information) The survival claim, which carries the deceased’s own § 1983 cause of action forward, is governed by § 377.30.

How are the damages different?

The two claims recover different losses. The survival claim, the deceased’s own § 1983 claim, can recover for their pre-death harm and the violation of their rights, and can support punitive damages against an individual officer. The wrongful death claim compensates the family for their own loss: the support, the companionship, the relationship that was taken.

Bringing both is how you make a public entity take the case seriously. Punitive damages are aimed at the officer’s conduct and are not available against the public entity itself, but they change the temperature of a case. California has also done something most states have not: under the Tom Bane Civil Rights Act and Senate Bill 2, an officer cannot hide behind qualified immunity for a Bane Act claim the way they can in a pure federal case. (Shouse Law) That gives families a powerful state-law path that the federal immunity doctrine does not block, and it is one reason these cases are often stronger in California than elsewhere.

What is the deadline to file a claim after a fatal police shooting in California?

For claims against a California public entity, you generally must file a written government tort claim within six months of the death before you can bring most state-law claims, including wrongful death. The federal § 1983 claim has a longer window, but the six-month state deadline is the one that quietly ends cases.

This is where I see good families lose rights they did not know they had. The agency that just killed your loved one is not going to remind you about a six-month deadline. They benefit from your silence and your grief. By the time the internal review wraps up and tells you the shooting was “within policy,” the clock may already have run. The government tort claim is a formal written notice to the city or county, and the rules about what it must contain and where it must be filed are technical enough that families should not navigate them alone.

There are first steps that protect a case from the very beginning. Request and preserve everything: the autopsy and coroner’s report, body-worn and dash-camera footage, dispatch and radio traffic, and the names of every officer and witness on scene. Do not give a recorded statement to the agency’s investigators or its insurer without counsel. And talk to a civil rights lawyer early, while the evidence is fresh and the deadlines are still open, not after they have closed.

What do these cases actually recover in Southern California?

Wrongful death settlements and verdicts against local agencies regularly reach into the millions. Our firm’s published results include a $2,900,000 wrongful death resolution in Eliuth Penaloza Nava v. City of Anaheim (2020). Numbers like that are not a lottery ticket; they reflect a life, and what it takes to make a department change.

I keep the facts of any specific case to what is in the public record, and so should any lawyer who writes about results. But the larger point stands: when a family brings both the constitutional claim and the wrongful death claim, with the evidence preserved and the deadlines met, a public entity that expected the family to disappear has to reckon with a real case instead.

If you lost a family member to a police shooting anywhere in Southern California, please do not wait for the agency to tell you whether you have a case. There is a six-month government tort claim deadline lurking, and it does not pause for grief. Talk to a civil rights lawyer who has done this before, and do it early.

Jerry L. Steering, Esq.

Steering Law is a California-based civil rights and criminal defense firm led by Jerry L. Steering, Esq. The firm focuses on police misconduct cases, including excessive force, false arrest, malicious prosecution, contempt of cop incidents, and 42 U.S.C. §1983 civil rights actions, while also handling serious criminal defense matters. Steering Law is dedicated to protecting clients’ constitutional rights and delivering justice for individuals who have been wronged by law enforcement.

steeringlaw.com/

Yes. A foam baton round, bean bag, or rubber bullet is still force, and when an officer fires one at someone who poses no immediate threat, that can be excessive force under the Fourth Amendment and California law. You can bring a civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law for your injuries and the violation of your rights.

I have been suing the police since 1984, and I will tell you what the agencies will not: the word “less-lethal” is a public-relations term, not a medical one. A 40-millimeter foam round to the face does not know it is supposed to be less lethal. It fractures eye sockets, blinds people in one eye, and shatters teeth. I have watched departments fire these things into crowds and then describe the people they hit as if they were the problem. The label is designed to make a dangerous weapon sound gentle, so that when it maims someone, the public shrugs.

What does California law say about police use of “less-lethal” force?

The standard comes from the Fourth Amendment and is the same one used for any force: was it objectively reasonable? Under Graham v. Connor, courts weigh the severity of the suspected crime, whether the person posed an immediate threat, and whether they were actively resisting or fleeing. California’s Penal Code § 835a adds that force must be necessary.

The U.S. Supreme Court set the framework in Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), holding that police force is judged by what a reasonable officer would do, not by hindsight. (Cornell LII) The three Graham factors are not abstract. A person standing on a sidewalk recording the police, or walking away from a protest with their hands up, has committed no serious crime, poses no immediate threat, and is not resisting. Fire a hard round at that person and you have, in plain terms, used force that was not reasonable.

California then went further than the federal floor. Penal Code § 835a, as strengthened by Assembly Bill 392 in 2019, tells officers that deadly force must be necessary and that they have a duty to consider de-escalation. (California Legislative Information) And in 2025, the Supreme Court in Barnes v. Felix instructed courts to examine the whole encounter, including the officer’s own conduct in the moments leading up to the use of force, rather than freezing the analysis at the final second. That matters, because the officer who creates the chaos should not get to point at the chaos as his excuse.

When is a rubber bullet or bean bag round considered excessive force?

It becomes excessive force when the person hit was not an immediate threat. Most agencies’ own policies forbid firing these rounds at someone’s head, neck, or groin, and forbid firing indiscriminately into a crowd. When officers break their own rules and strike a peaceful or retreating person, that is strong evidence the force was unreasonable.

Here is the part the police do not advertise: their own training and written policy already tell a jury most of what it needs to know. Less-lethal launchers are supposed to be aimed at the lower body, used against a specific person who is an active threat, and never sprayed into a crowd of people who are standing, recording, or walking away. When a department violates the very policy it wrote, the “officer’s safety” justification starts to collapse. I have cross-examined enough officers to know that the policy manual they were trained on is often the best witness against them.

Southern California has produced a steady stream of these cases. In April 2026, a federal jury awarded $11.8 million to a man permanently blinded in one eye by an LAPD less-lethal munition fired into a crowd. (Davis Vanguard) Earlier in 2026, residents who were shot in the head and face during protests against federal immigration enforcement filed civil rights suits against the City and County of Los Angeles, alleging the agencies fired indiscriminately and without dispersal warnings. (Davis Vanguard) These are not freak accidents. They are the predictable result of treating a dangerous weapon as if it were harmless.

What should you do if you were hit by a police projectile?

Get medical care and document the injury, photograph the wounds, save your clothing unwashed, write down the date, time, location, and agency, identify witnesses, preserve any video, and call a civil rights attorney before giving any statement. The first hours and days matter more than people realize.

Take these steps as soon as you safely can:

1. Get medical care and make sure the injury is documented in the records.
2. Photograph every wound, and keep photographing as it heals.
3. Save your clothing unwashed and in a bag.
4. Write down the date, time, location, and agency while it is fresh.
5. Identify witnesses and preserve any video, including livestreams.
6. Call a civil rights attorney before giving any statement.

Let me be blunt about evidence, because it wins these cases. The projectile itself, the bruise pattern, and the medical imaging often tell the story better than any officer’s report ever will. Body-worn camera footage and the agency’s own use-of-force logs are gold, but they have a way of disappearing if no one demands them in time. The sooner a lawyer sends a litigation hold and a preservation letter, the better your odds of seeing the footage that the department would rather you never see.

There is also a deadline trap that catches good people. If your case involves a city, county, or other public entity in California, you generally must file a written government tort claim within six months of the incident before you can sue for many state-law damages. Miss that window and you can lose otherwise strong claims. Do not let that clock run out while you are recovering.

I represent people across Southern California who were hurt this way, from Los Angeles to Orange County and beyond. If the police shot you with one of these rounds and you were not a threat, you may have a real case, and you should not have to face a city attorney’s office alone. Call my office for a free, confidential evaluation.

Jerry L. Steering, Esq.

Steering Law is a California-based civil rights and criminal defense firm led by Jerry L. Steering, Esq. The firm focuses on police misconduct cases, including excessive force, false arrest, malicious prosecution, contempt of cop incidents, and 42 U.S.C. §1983 civil rights actions, while also handling serious criminal defense matters. Steering Law is dedicated to protecting clients’ constitutional rights and delivering justice for individuals who have been wronged by law enforcement.

steeringlaw.com/

The hours immediately following a police misconduct incident are the most important hours of your civil rights case. Not the day you file. Not the day of trial. Right now — while the memory is fresh, the injuries are visible, the witnesses are reachable, and the evidence still exists.

Most people spend those hours in shock. Some spend them in jail. Some are consumed by the criminal case that has just been opened against them. Almost none of them are taking the steps that will determine whether their civil rights case succeeds or fails.

This guide is what your attorney would tell you to do if they were standing next to you when it happened. Follow it as closely as your circumstances allow — and then call an attorney as fast as you possibly can.

Step 1: Get Medical Attention — Even If You Think You Are Fine

If you have been subjected to excessive force, go to a hospital or urgent care facility. Do this before anything else.

This is not just about your health. It is about evidence. Medical records documenting your injuries — made close in time to the incident — are among the most important pieces of evidence in any police misconduct case. They establish what was done to you, when it was done, and the severity of the harm. They are far more credible than photographs alone.

Ask the treating physician to document every injury in detail. Photograph your injuries before treatment when possible, and again after. If symptoms emerge in the following days — headaches, pain, bruising that develops over time — return and get those documented as well.

Medical records also create a timeline. If the incident happened at 10 p.m. and you arrived at the emergency room at 10:45 p.m. with injuries consistent with the force you described, that record becomes part of the factual foundation of your case.

Step 2: Write Everything Down — Immediately and In Detail

Memory degrades fast. Details that feel unforgettable right now will blur within days. The police report — written by the officer who harmed you and shaped to justify what they did — exists in permanent written form from day one. Your account needs to exist in permanent written form too.

As soon as you are physically able, document everything you remember:

• The exact date, time, and location of the incident
• The names, badge numbers, and physical descriptions of all officers involved
• The agency and patrol unit if known; the patrol car number if visible
• Everything that was said — by you, by the officers, and by anyone present — as close to verbatim as you can recall
• The precise sequence of events: what happened first, what triggered each escalation
• Exactly what force was used, by whom, and to what part of your body
• Whether officers wore body cameras and whether those cameras appeared activated
• Whether any bystanders were present and what they witnessed

Do not edit for tone. Write what happened. Sign and date the document. A contemporaneous written account carries significant evidentiary weight — precisely because it was made while the events were fresh.

Step 3: Identify and Secure Witnesses

Witnesses are perishable evidence. People move, lose their phones, forget what they saw, and become unreachable. The window to capture witness information is short.

If there were bystanders who witnessed the incident, get their names and contact information immediately — before leaving the scene if possible. If you cannot do it yourself, ask a family member or friend to do it on your behalf.

If someone filmed the encounter — a bystander, a passing driver, or a business surveillance camera — that footage needs to be secured without delay. Ask the person who filmed to save the original, unedited file and not post it publicly before speaking with an attorney. For surveillance footage, contact the business immediately. Most commercial systems overwrite footage on a rolling basis — typically within 30 to 90 days, sometimes less. Once gone, it cannot be recovered.

Your attorney can send a litigation hold letter demanding preservation of surveillance footage, dispatch logs, and body camera recordings — but only if you have identified those sources promptly.

Step 4: Preserve Physical Evidence

Physical evidence from the incident is evidence. Do not destroy it, wash it, or throw it away.

This includes:

• Clothing worn during the incident — bag it in a paper bag (not plastic, which traps moisture), label it with the date, and store it. Torn fabric, blood stains, and soil transfer can all become significant evidence.
• Any personal property that was damaged or seized — document the condition with photographs and preserve everything you still have.
• Photographs of your injuries — taken as soon after the incident as possible, and again over the following days as bruising develops and changes. Use your phone. Timestamp is automatic.
• Any items connected to the incident — receipts, parking tickets, phone records showing your location, anything that places you where you say you were at the time you say you were there.

Step 5: Request Body Camera and Surveillance Footage

California law gives you the right to request police body camera footage. Under Senate Bill 1421 and Assembly Bill 748, footage of incidents involving use of force resulting in injury is subject to public disclosure under the California Public Records Act (CPRA). An agency must acknowledge your request within 10 calendar days and release critical incident footage generally within 45 days.

Make your CPRA request in writing — certified mail or email with delivery confirmation. Keep copies. If the agency claims footage was lost, overwritten, or never recorded despite a camera activation policy, that failure itself can support your civil rights claim.

Submit the request early. Your attorney will pursue the footage through formal legal channels, but your written request creates a paper trail showing you acted promptly.

Step 6: Do Not Talk to Police About the Incident

If the same officers — or others from the same agency — contact you after the incident to take a statement, ask follow-up questions, or explain their version of events, do not engage without an attorney present. Everything you say will be used to support the official account. It will not be used to help you.

This applies even if the officer seems sympathetic or suggests that cooperating will make things easier. It will not. Your right to remain silent exists. Use it.

Step 7: Be Careful on Social Media

Do not post about the incident on social media. Not a description, not photographs, not your frustration, not your account of events.

Anything posted publicly can be used by the defense — taken out of context, used to challenge your credibility, or contradict aspects of your account in ways that are difficult to explain even when the explanation is straightforward.

If you have already posted about the incident, do not delete anything. Deletion of evidence can itself become a problem. Contact an attorney before taking any further action on any social media account connected to the incident.

Step 8: Contact a Civil Rights Attorney — Today

Everything in this guide is preliminary. It protects your evidence and your position while you get proper legal counsel. It does not substitute for that counsel.

The six-month government claim deadline begins running the day the incident occurs. Evidence degrades every day. Witnesses become harder to reach with every week that passes.

An experienced civil rights attorney will take over evidence preservation, send litigation hold letters, file the government claim on your behalf, and advise you on whether the criminal case and civil rights case need to be managed together. All of that happens in the early stages — none of it effectively without a prompt call.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Immediate Aftermath of Police Misconduct

The First 72 Hours Set the Course of What Comes Next

Civil rights cases are won or lost on evidence. The evidence that exists in the first 72 hours after a police misconduct incident — injuries, witnesses, footage, physical materials — is more complete and more credible than anything that can be assembled weeks or months later. The Law Offices of Jerry L. Steering has handled police misconduct cases in Southern California since 1984. We know what evidence matters, how to preserve it, and how to use it. If you or someone you know has been the victim of police misconduct, do not wait to call.

Prior case results do not guarantee or predict similar outcomes in future matters. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The State Bar of California does not recognize a specialty in police misconduct.

Sources

1. California Penal Code § 832.7 — Police personnel records; officer misconduct disclosures; SB 1421 amendments. California Legislative Information. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov
2. California Senate Bill 1421 (Right to Know Act, effective January 1, 2019) — Public access to records of police use of force, sexual misconduct, and dishonesty. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov
3. California Assembly Bill 748 (effective July 1, 2019) — Public access to body camera and audio recordings of critical incidents. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov
4. California Public Records Act (CPRA), Government Code §§ 7920-7931 — Rights to inspect and copy government records; 10-day acknowledgment requirement. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov
5. California Government Code § 911.2(a) — Six-month deadline for government tort claims for personal injury. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov
6. ACLU of Southern California — “Access to California Police Records.” https://www.aclusocal.org/know-your-rights/access-ca-police-records/
7. First Amendment Coalition — “Police Transparency Handbook: California Public Records Act and SB 1421/AB 748.” https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/handbook/police-transparency-handbook/
8. Freedom of the Press Foundation — “Tips for Requesting Body-Worn Camera Footage,” June 2025. https://freedom.press/the-classifieds/tips-for-requesting-body-worn-camera-footage-from-the-la-protests/
9. CalMatters — “California Police Misconduct Records Now Available in Public Database,” August 4, 2025. https://calmatters.org/justice/2025/08/police-misconduct-records-database/
10. Law Offices of Jerry L. Steering — Practice areas and case results. https://steeringlaw.com/police-misconduct-and-other-civil-rights-case-results/

Jerry L. Steering, Esq.

Steering Law is a California-based civil rights and criminal defense firm led by Jerry L. Steering, Esq. The firm focuses on police misconduct cases, including excessive force, false arrest, malicious prosecution, contempt of cop incidents, and 42 U.S.C. §1983 civil rights actions, while also handling serious criminal defense matters. Steering Law is dedicated to protecting clients’ constitutional rights and delivering justice for individuals who have been wronged by law enforcement.

steeringlaw.com/

Most people who have been falsely arrested do not know it happened. They know the arrest felt wrong. They know they did not do anything illegal. But they assume that if the police arrested them, some legal justification must exist — because otherwise, why would officers do it?

That assumption is wrong. Officers make false arrests every day in California. Some result from mistaken identity. Others are pretextual — manufactured to punish someone who questioned police authority, refused a search, or happened to be in the wrong place. And some are calculated: a way to shift legal liability away from an officer who used excessive force by charging the victim with a “resistance offense” that gives the arrest the appearance of legitimacy.

False arrest is not a legal technicality. It is a Fourth Amendment violation. And in California, it is something you can sue for.

What Is a False Arrest Under California and Federal Law?

A false arrest occurs when a law enforcement officer takes you into custody — physically detaining you and depriving you of your freedom of movement — without the legal justification required to do so.

Under both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and California Penal Code § 836, a police officer making a warrantless arrest must have probable cause — facts and circumstances that would lead a reasonable person to believe that a crime has been committed and that the specific person being arrested committed it. An arrest made without that evidentiary foundation is constitutionally invalid. It is a false arrest regardless of what the officer’s report says, regardless of whether charges were filed, and regardless of whether those charges were later dropped.

Probable cause is not a gut feeling. It is not a hunch. It is not based on the neighborhood you were standing in, the way you looked at an officer, or the fact that someone who vaguely matched your description was seen nearby. Courts are clear on this: probable cause requires specific, articulable facts that, taken together, justify the conclusion that this person, right now, committed this crime.

When those facts do not exist and the arrest happens anyway, that is a civil rights violation — and you have the right to sue.

False Arrest vs. Unlawful Detention: The Distinction That Determines Your Case

California and federal law recognize that police encounters exist on a spectrum. At one end is a consensual encounter — an officer approaching you and asking questions you are free to decline. Your freedom has not been restricted. No constitutional standard applies.

In the middle is a Terry stop — a brief investigatory detention permitted by Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). An officer can temporarily detain you if they have reasonable suspicion: specific, articulable facts suggesting criminal activity. Reasonable suspicion is a lower standard than probable cause. It allows a brief investigative stop — nothing more.

At the far end is an arrest — a full custodial detention requiring probable cause. The moment an officer handcuffs you, places you in a patrol car, or makes clear you are not free to leave, the encounter has crossed from detention into arrest. And the legal standard jumps from reasonable suspicion to probable cause.

Why does this distinction matter in litigation? Because officers routinely blur the line — treating a situation as a “detention” to avoid scrutiny while exercising the kind of total physical control that only a lawful arrest authorizes. If what happened to you looked and felt like an arrest — handcuffs, patrol car, no freedom to leave — it was an arrest, regardless of what the officer called it. And it required probable cause.

Common Scenarios That Constitute False Arrest in California

Not every wrongful police encounter is a false arrest. But some of the most common situations that generate viable civil rights claims include:

Arrests based on fabricated police reports. Officers write reports after encounters. Those reports often characterize what happened in ways designed to justify the arrest retroactively. When the officer’s account is contradicted by body camera footage, bystander video, or witness testimony, a fabricated basis for arrest can itself be the foundation of a civil rights claim.

Arrests for exercising constitutional rights. As covered throughout this blog series, officers frequently arrest people for questioning their authority, refusing a warrantless search, filming an encounter, or verbally challenging an order. None of those things are crimes. Arresting someone for them — under the guise of a “resistance offense” — is a false arrest. It is also, as covered in Blog #1, a Contempt of Cop arrest.

Arrests based on mistaken identity. An officer receives a description of a suspect. The description matches you imperfectly. The officer makes the arrest anyway, without doing the additional investigative work necessary to establish actual probable cause as to you specifically. Misidentification-based arrests happen with disturbing regularity and are among the most straightforwardly actionable.

Arrests following unlawful Terry stops. If an officer stops you without reasonable suspicion — because you were in a “high-crime area,” because you are a certain race, because you were walking away — any arrest that flows from that stop is tainted. Evidence discovered during an unlawful stop can be suppressed in your criminal case. The unlawful stop itself, and the resulting arrest, can support a civil rights claim.

Arrests used to cover up excessive force. This is the pattern at the heart of most of Mr. Steering’s civil rights practice. An officer uses force. To justify the force and to insulate themselves from civil liability, they arrest the person they used force upon and charge them with a resistance offense. The arrest is the mechanism — not the consequence — of the misconduct.

What a False Arrest Can Cost You — Even If Charges Are Dropped

Most people assume that if charges are dropped or dismissed, the matter is over. It is not.

A false arrest produces lasting consequences: lost wages for time spent in custody or fighting charges, medical bills for injuries sustained during the arrest, damage to your reputation and employment record even without a conviction, the cost of criminal defense and bail, and serious emotional harm.

In a civil rights lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the California Bane Act, you can seek compensation for all of those consequences — plus punitive damages when the officer’s conduct was deliberately retaliatory or racially motivated. Under the Bane Act, successful plaintiffs can also recover treble damages and enhanced attorney’s fees unavailable in federal-only claims.

What you cannot do is accept a plea bargain in the criminal case and then try to sue. A conviction — including a guilty plea to a minor charge — almost always blocks the civil rights lawsuit. How the criminal case is handled is not a separate matter from the civil rights case. They are the same matter, and they must be managed together from day one.

Frequently Asked Questions About False Arrest in California

You Were Not Wrong to Think Something Was Wrong

If you were taken into custody and knew — felt in your bones — that you had not done anything to justify it, you were probably right. The law says officers must have facts. Not feelings. Not hunches. Not a desire to control the situation. Facts.

The Law Offices of Jerry L. Steering has been litigating false arrest cases in California federal courts since 1984. We know how these cases are built, which evidence matters, and what it takes to hold an officer and their department accountable. If you believe you were falsely arrested — whether charges were filed, dropped, or you were never charged at all — call us.

Prior case results do not guarantee or predict similar outcomes in future matters. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The State Bar of California does not recognize a specialty in police misconduct.

Sources

1. U.S. Constitution, Amendment IV — Protection from unreasonable searches and seizures.
2. California Penal Code § 836 — Standards for lawful warrantless arrest; probable cause requirement.
3. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) — Established reasonable suspicion standard for investigatory stops; distinguished from probable cause required for arrest.
4. Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429 (1991) — Standard for when a person is “seized” under the Fourth Amendment.
5. Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994) — Conviction bars § 1983 civil rights claim arising from same conduct.
6. 42 U.S.C. § 1983 — Federal civil rights statute for constitutional violations under color of state law.
7. California Civil Code § 52.1 — Tom Bane Civil Rights Act; provides state civil rights remedies including treble damages.
8. California Assembly Bill 93 (effective January 1, 2024) — Prohibits officers from requesting consent to search without first having reasonable suspicion.
9. Law Offices of Jerry L. Steering — “False Arrest vs. Unlawful Detention in California — What’s the Difference, and Why It Matters for Your Civil Rights Case,” January 14, 2026. https://steeringlaw.com/false-arrest-vs-unlawful-detention-in-california-whats-the-difference-and-why-it-matters-for-your-civil-rights-case/
10. Shouse Law Group — “I Was Falsely Arrested in California — What Can I Do About It?” Updated March 2026. https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/civil-rights/false-arrest/
11. FindLaw — “The Fourth Amendment and Probable Cause.” https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment4/annotation04.html
12. California 2024 Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) Annual Report — Individualized reasonable suspicion standards and statistical benchmarks.

Jerry L. Steering, Esq.

Steering Law is a California-based civil rights and criminal defense firm led by Jerry L. Steering, Esq. The firm focuses on police misconduct cases, including excessive force, false arrest, malicious prosecution, contempt of cop incidents, and 42 U.S.C. §1983 civil rights actions, while also handling serious criminal defense matters. Steering Law is dedicated to protecting clients’ constitutional rights and delivering justice for individuals who have been wronged by law enforcement.

steeringlaw.com/

You pull out your phone. You start recording. The officer turns toward you and says, “Put that away.” Or maybe they say nothing — they just walk over, put their hand over the lens, and tell you to move along. Or they grab your arm, take you to the ground, and you wake up in a jail cell charged with obstructing a peace officer.

Here is what California law and federal constitutional law both say about every one of those scenarios: the officer was wrong.

Recording police officers performing their duties in public is a clearly established First Amendment right in California and throughout the Ninth Circuit. It has been for decades. Officers who retaliate against you for exercising that right — by arresting you, seizing your phone, deleting your footage, or using force — have violated your constitutional rights. And as of 2026, that area of law is more settled, more litigated, and more actively enforced than at any point in history.

This blog explains what your rights actually are, where the genuine limits lie, and what you can do when police cross the line.

The Constitutional Foundation: Why Filming Police Is a Protected Right

The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Federal courts have consistently interpreted those protections to include the right to gather information about public officials — and recording what law enforcement does in public is one of the most direct ways of doing exactly that.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals — which covers all of California — has held explicitly that there is a First Amendment right to record matters of public interest in public places, including “the right to record law enforcement officers engaged in the exercise of their official duties in public places.” Askins v. Department of Homeland Security, 899 F.3d 1035, 1044 (9th Cir. 2018). That ruling built on Fordyce v. City of Seattle, 55 F.3d 436 (9th Cir. 1995), where the court reversed summary judgment for an officer who assaulted a man and smashed his camera to stop him from filming a protest.

California state law reinforces this. California Penal Code § 148(g) is explicit: photographing, videotaping, or recording police activity in a public space is not, by itself, a violation of the law. Recording alone does not constitute obstruction, delay, or resistance under § 148(a)(1) — the statute officers most commonly invoke when they want to justify a retaliatory arrest.

The right is not limited to journalists. It belongs to everyone. Any person standing on a public sidewalk, watching a traffic stop, an arrest, or any other law enforcement activity has the constitutional right to record it.

What Officers Cannot Do When You Are Filming

When you are lawfully recording police activity in public, officers cannot:

• Order you to stop recording simply because they do not want to be filmed. Personal discomfort with being documented is not a legal basis for any order or arrest.
• Seize or search your phone without a warrant. The Fourth Amendment protects your device. Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014), held that police must obtain a warrant before searching a phone seized incident to arrest. Even if you are arrested, the officer cannot access your recordings.
• Delete your footage under any circumstances. The government may never destroy your photographs or videos. Deletion is itself a constitutional violation that can anchor a civil rights lawsuit.
• Arrest you for filming alone. An arrest motivated by the fact that you were recording — absent any other legitimate basis — is a First Amendment retaliation claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
• Physically obstruct your recording. In Irizarry v. Yehia, the Tenth Circuit held that an officer who stood in front of a journalist and shone a flashlight into his camera violated the journalist’s First Amendment rights. Physical interference with lawful recording is itself a constitutional violation.

The Limits: Where the Right to Record Ends

The right to film police is real and broad. It is not unlimited. Understanding where the genuine legal limits fall helps you protect yourself during an encounter.

You cannot physically interfere with an arrest or investigation. Filming does not give you license to stand in the middle of a crime scene, grab an officer’s arm, or obstruct a lawful law enforcement action. If your recording is creating a physical obstacle to what officers are doing — not merely documenting it — you have crossed into territory that can support a legitimate obstruction charge.

You must comply with a lawful order to relocate. If officers establish a legitimate perimeter around a crime scene or active emergency situation, they may order bystanders — including those who are filming — to step back to a specific distance. That order must be based on a genuine law enforcement need, not on the fact that you are recording. If you are ordered to move and you can continue filming from the new position, compliance is your safest course. An officer cannot use a relocation order as a pretext to stop recording entirely.

You cannot use a concealed camera to record private conversations. California Penal Code § 632 requires the consent of all parties to record a private conversation. When police officers are performing their duties in public — a traffic stop, an arrest, a public confrontation — there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, and consent is not required. But recording private conversations between officers in a non-public setting without their knowledge is a different matter and can implicate wiretapping law.

You must maintain a safe distance. “Safe distance” is not a fixed number, and courts recognize that. The standard is whether your position is genuinely interfering with what officers are doing. Standing twenty feet away on a public sidewalk is not interference. Pressing your phone into an officer’s face during a use-of-force incident is.

What Is Happening Right Now: 2025–2026 Developments

The First Amendment right to record police has never been more actively litigated than in 2025 and 2026.

In April 2026, the Ninth Circuit upheld preliminary injunctive relief in L.A. Press Club v. Noem, finding that journalists, legal observers, and protesters subjected to retaliatory force by Department of Homeland Security agents while documenting immigration enforcement in Southern California were likely to succeed on their First Amendment retaliation claims. The court described “an avalanche” of evidence showing a pattern of retaliatory conduct against people exercising their constitutional right to document federal agents in public.

In March 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in Villarreal v. Alaniz — a case involving a journalist arrested for questioning a public official in what Justice Sotomayor, dissenting, described as a “months-long effort by a police department and district attorney’s office to retaliate against her because they disliked much of her reporting.” The case illustrates how aggressively law enforcement will move against those who document them — and why experience in these cases is not optional.

At the local level, Southern California has seen a significant uptick in civil rights lawsuits arising from protests against federal immigration enforcement in 2025, with multiple plaintiffs alleging that LAPD and LASD officers fired less-lethal projectiles at journalists and bystanders who were recording public law enforcement activity.

The right exists. Officers keep violating it. Courts keep stepping in.

Frequently Asked Questions About Recording Police in California

If They Retaliated Against You for Filming, That Is a Civil Rights Case

Knowing your rights is one thing. Enforcing them is another. If you were arrested, assaulted, had your phone seized, or had your footage deleted because you were recording police activity in California, you may have a viable civil rights claim under both federal and state law.

The Law Offices of Jerry L. Steering has handled First Amendment retaliation cases and police misconduct lawsuits since 1984. We know how these cases are built, what evidence matters, and what it takes to hold an officer accountable in federal court. If it happened to you, call us.

Prior case results do not guarantee or predict similar outcomes in future matters. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The State Bar of California does not recognize a specialty in police misconduct.

Sources

1. U.S. Constitution, Amendment I — Freedom of speech, press, and assembly.
2. Askins v. Department of Homeland Security, 899 F.3d 1035, 1044 (9th Cir. 2018) — First Amendment right to record law enforcement in public.
3. Fordyce v. City of Seattle, 55 F.3d 436 (9th Cir. 1995) — Officer who assaulted man filming a protest violated § 1983.
4. Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014) — Police must obtain a warrant before searching a phone seized incident to arrest.
5. Irizarry v. Yehia, No. 21-1247, 2022 WL 2659462 (10th Cir. 2022) — Officer who obstructed journalist’s filming violated First Amendment.
6. City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451 (1987) — First Amendment protects verbal challenge of police; freedom to oppose police without risking arrest distinguishes free nation from police state.
7. Villarreal v. Alaniz, U.S. Supreme Court, cert. denied March 23, 2026, with dissent by Justice Sotomayor — journalist arrested for questioning public official; First Amendment retaliation.
8. California Penal Code § 148(g) — Recording police activity in public is not itself a violation of law.
9. California Penal Code § 632 — Two-party consent for recording private conversations; does not apply to police performing public duties.
10. ACLU — “Recording and Documenting Police and Federal Agents,” updated March 2026. https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/recording-and-documenting-police-and-federal-agents
11. ACLU of Southern California — “Ninth Circuit Affirms Protesters, Journalists and Legal Observers Are Entitled to First Amendment Protections,” April 2026. https://www.aclusocal.org/press-releases/ninth-circuit-affirms-protesters-journalists-and-legal-observers-are-entitled-to-first-amendment-protections/
12. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press — “Right to Record Government Officials in Public.” https://www.rcfp.org/reporters-recording-sections/right-to-record/

Jerry L. Steering, Esq.

Steering Law is a California-based civil rights and criminal defense firm led by Jerry L. Steering, Esq. The firm focuses on police misconduct cases, including excessive force, false arrest, malicious prosecution, contempt of cop incidents, and 42 U.S.C. §1983 civil rights actions, while also handling serious criminal defense matters. Steering Law is dedicated to protecting clients’ constitutional rights and delivering justice for individuals who have been wronged by law enforcement.

steeringlaw.com/