De-Arrest Primer

intro

A de-arrest, aka an unarrest, is the act

of freeing someone who has been seized by
Law   Enforcement   Officers   (LEOs).   Often
its police that repress protests and make ar-
rests, but federal agents, like BORTAC who
were deployed in 2020, have done riot con-
trol and also have arresting powers. A de-ar-
rest  can look like physically removing an
arrestee from LEOs' grips, opening the door
of a car, or pressuring LEOs to release an
arrestee.   Being   arrested   can   have   drastic
negative life altering affects, especially for
targeted populations like people who aren't
white, Muslims, LGBTQ people, and cer-
tain radicals. It follows then that reversing
an   arrest   can   be   well   worth   the   risks   in-
volved.

There are many situations where a de-arrest
is worth the risk, but please don't skip the
considerations section at the end.

tactic 1

Using a secure grip like the Gable

grip that's illustrated above, hug the arrestee
and pull them out of danger.

You can also hug a person hugging the ar-
restee as your grips should be strong enough
that your efforts will still combine. Holding
the arrestee around the torso or abdomen is
preferred   to   grabbing   limbs   as   limbs   are
harder to get a grip on and can easily dislo-
cate   if   two   or   more   people   are   exerting
force of them in opposing directions. It may
be tempting to pull on a backpack or article
of clothing, but most cloth tears easily and
backpacks   that   aren't   secured   by   copious
straps and buckles comes loose with ease.

Of   the   tactics   presented   here   this   takes   a
medium   level   of   risk.   Pulling   someone
who's being snatched by LEOs away from
them is more risky than simply pressuring
officers to release the arrestee without phys-
ical   contact   with   the   arrestee,   but   it   also
doesn't   require   physical   contact   with   offi-
cers like the next tactic “tactic 2” does.

tactic 2

Pulling and pushing an officer off

of an arrestee and/or breaking their grip on
an arrestee.

Often combined with “tactic 1” this tactic is
probably the most risky as it requires physi-
cal contact with an officer which could lead
to assault on an officer charges or escalate
the LEO response if the police aren't al-

ready fully escalated, which very well may
be the case if you're at a protest and officers
begin making arrests. But risk is also al-
ways contextual and an arrest or even a gen-
eral pacified attitude can lead to greater
harm than not taking the risk and acting de-
cisively when you see repression take place.

Technically speaking for pushing off form
you should have a low center of gravity and
a wide base and push with explosive power
with your head up at all times if possible.
You could also try pulling the officer off us-
ing a similar hugging technique to tactic 1
this time you can also utilize the leverage of
a hip twist. For breaking a grip try striking
the grip. All that being said you can see why
this can get construed as assault in court.
Note that similar effects can be had via tac-
tic 1, but also that tactic 1 easily slips into
this tactic of direct contact with officers.

tactic 3

Opening a

door to let the ar-
restee(s) go free.

LEOs   will   leave
their   patrol   cars   or
prisoner   transport
vans unlocked from
time   to   time,   even
when   there's   ar-
restee's   sitting   in
said vehicles. In this
case one can simply
sneakily   or   quickly
open the door of one of these vehicles and
let the arrestees out. Of course this is could
be considered a crime, but in terms of risk
level it would fall lower in most cases than
something like directly putting hands on an
officer or someone they're physically arrest-
ing.

tactic 4

Pressuring

police to release the
arrestee(s).

Last, but not least, this
tactic   can   often   be
done   with   the   lowest
level of risk out of all
the   tactics   mentioned
here.   One   basic   and
pretty effective imple-
mentation of this tactic

is totally surrounding the officers who have
the arrestee or otherwise blocking them
and/or their vehicle and chanting “Let them
go!” and the like until the LEOs cave to the
mounting pressure. As we're writing this a
couple instances of such a use of this tactic
have come out of the Palestine solidarity
campus occupations.

This tactic has also been used with some
success via surrounding police stations and
uses online pressure campaigns, though this
is less wide spread and requires more spe-
cific circumstances than having someone re-
lease before they're processed at a station or
jail.

The benefit of this tactic is that its the police
themselves consenting to the unarrest so
while they are in some sense being forced to
release the arrestee(s) so the dearresters and
the ex-arrestee won't have to face escape or
assault charges if they are tracked down lat-
er. If you don't have a crowd asserting pres-
sure there may be some interference charges
that come with blocking a police vehicle
that may be more easily handed down for
only one or two people blocking a police
vehicle, but in many cases these are misde-
meanor offenses and catch and release.

considerations

All de-arrest tactics, are

best done with the backing of a at least a
handful of people. Not only does having
more people make it easier to overpower the
officers' holds if you're physically interven-
ing, but also so that those performing the
de-arrest can be de-arrested themselves as
trying to pull an arrestee away from LEOs
can result in officers grabbing and trying to
arrest the people who are performing the de-
arrest. This also applies to tactic 4 as men-
tioned previously where a critical mass can
be a deterrent and better at blocking a vehi-
cle that contains an arrestee. If you feel you
need more people during a de-arrest yelling
to fellow protesters for help can break peo-
ple out of the passive observer role.

Being arrested, jailed, and catching charges
are all awful experiences, but many, if not
all, protest arrests are catch and release so

it's   important   to   think   about   the   conse-
quences   of   particular   kinds   of   de-arrests.
Criminal charges for physically intervening
during   an   arrest   range   from   misdemeanor
interference   charges   to   felony   escape   and
assault on an officer charges. In some states
“anti-lynching laws” have been used to re-
press anti-racist activists who attempted de-
arrests. It is also the case that LEO use of
force varies. At the scene of a protest lethal
force is often tempered, but on the streets on
a “normal day” an officer could easily resort
to lethal force with relative impunity if they
feel remotely threatened. That being said, a
hostile   crowd   at   protest   that's   shown   its
willingness to act often makes officers think
twice as opposed to a pacified crowd that
can be steam-rolled.

Something else to consider is how identifi-
able you or the person you plan to de-arrest

are. Are your faces visible? Are you wear-
ing identifiable clothing? Did the police al-
ready take identifying information from the
arrestee? Will you be easily tracked down
later?

Another thing to take into account is that ar-
restees can be placed into metal handcuffs
or plastic zip-tie handcuffs aka quick-cuffs
like Flex Cuffs and Cobra Cuffs. It can be
pretty awkward for the arrestee to maneuver
and make it home with those in place so
consider carrying a handcuff key for con-
ventional metal handcuffs or something less
conspicuous like proper wire cutters or a
bobby pin for the roller locks for the plastic
hand cuffs.

All in all de-arresting can be an important
part of ones direct action tool kit. Neglected
here is how to de-arrest yourself, a future

draft may include such a tactic, but at this
point it would get too into the weed with
grappling and this guide for our purposes.
On the ground it could be suggested to try
and get your hips free and work to your
knees then leaning into the officer try and
work to a standing position with your hands
attempting to control their hands or break-
ing their grip if they've bear hugged you. As
you can see without illustrations it can get
pretty complicated pretty fast. Consider tak-
ing a couple months of grappling classes or
setting up more targeted grappling games
with your comrades. If you have the chops
for it there's instances of one person backed
by a couple friends pull comrade after com-
rade away from the police lines with mini-
mal wrestling experience.

Also worth noting that if you do get arrested
for attempting or successfully performing a

de-arrest there is a chance you can pull off a
“defense of others” defense which basically
entails you prove the arrest and use of force
used by the officer(s) was “unlawful” which
has worked before, but as you may know
the legal system is heavily weighted in fa-
vor of the police.

Lastly, it was briefly mentioned before, but
even just bolstering a conflictual disposition
towards repressive forces and encouraging
decisive action are a worthy goal even with-
out the added benefit of helping free some-
one. There's plenty of excellent reasons to
break   the   spell   of   self-policing   and   risk
charges   in   order   to   fight   back,   especially
when that antagonism can spread and shape
the general disposition of a given movement
for   the   better   or   even   explode   a   situation
into a deeper more affective rupture.

Each de-arrest is a “shaking off” which is to

say each one is a micro-intifada which can

spread and inspire others until we may finally

shake off this noxious ruling order all together.