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Can Using Pepper Spray Get You Charged With A Crime? | Washington State Attorney
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hello out there legal warriors can you
be charged with the crime for using
pepper spray for using pepper spray to
defend yourself well you might be
surprised by that answer so if you're
interested in this area of the law or
you carry pepper spray to defend
yourself stay tuned because this is the
video for you
[Music]
my name is attorney lance freyr and i've
been defending people charged with
crimes for more than 20 years and that's
all throughout washington state i'm
putting out these videos to help educate
the public so if you find this useful
please like and please subscribe more
people will get the help they need now
let's just jump right into it i mean
a lot of people carry pepper spray and
when i thought about making this video i
talked to my staff and one of my own
paralegals just pulled out pepper spray
right from her purse you know it should
be okay
is what we all think no problem to use
pepper spray to defend ourselves it's
non-lethal the police use it and it's
wild widely available right and a lot of
people watching this video may have
pepper spray or have their loved ones
that do and so why am i making this
video because i've seen a lot of police
reports lately where people are either
being investigated for crimes or even
charged with crimes for using pepper
spray
apparently in a way the police don't
like
and what is pepper spray well i'm no
expert but i think of it as a little a
tube maybe a liquid tube that's got a
high test high capsaicin type a
pressurized liquid or mist
that that disables someone that makes
their eyes red and disables them it's
non-lethal it's really meant to be a
defensive measure you know it's one of
the
lower levels of force used by law
enforcement and it's allowed in
washington state at least for the for
the public to carry that
and so
what are the factors we need to be
worried about if we are in a situation
where we think we need to use this
pepper spray to defend ourselves how can
we do it
in a way and how can we talk about it
later to minimize the chances of us
having problems with law enforcement
because let's think about it um if we're
using pepper spray we were probably in
our minds in an emergency situation
we're probably afraid uh we're afraid
we're going to be assaulted
or worse and we're trying to get out of
that situation so
the what you have to know about in
washington state is
if we were to use pepper spray against
someone without a valid reason without
sort of a self-defense reason that could
be considered and will be considered an
assault
assault in washington state is any
unwanted touching including by something
that you spray or throw spit even that
is a salt and depending on what happens
to the victim of the assault depends on
the level of assault if it's uh you know
how serious the charge is the salt in
the fourth degree is any unwanted
touching no injuries stuff like that
assault in the third degree is a felony
and that is like
negligent infliction of bodily harm in a
pepper spray situation
um there's a whole bunch of different
other ways and assault in the second
degree even a higher level felony which
is a strike offense three strikes and
you go to prison for life believe it or
not i'm assaulting the second degree is
basically substantial bodily harm being
uh inflicted and those uh
definitions are in the law and sort of
the beauties in the eye the beholder a
police officer
thinking that someone used pepper spray
for an unjustified reason
could choose to arrest or refer for
assault 4
assault 3
or even assault 2. i've seen all of
those believe it or not i've seen all of
those fairly recently
so what do you have to think about well
again
technically using pepper spray
is an assault but there's defenses to
assault
and so self-defense so if an officer
believes that somebody acted in
self-defense they're probably not going
to think about that use of pepper spray
as an assault are they so what do we
have to worry about
well we use the pepper spray we only
want to be using that from a legal
standpoint if we're really subject to
intimate imminent assault or something's
actually going on not
if we just use it because we're scared
that might be a good idea still to do
but if we describe it that way we're
going to have some more problems with
law enforcement so in general
self-defense in washington state is
we're allowed to defend ourselves
against attack but
our
defense use of force has to be
proportional to the use of force against
us so if someone's pushing us
outside of our home at least we probably
can't shoot them in the head
right
and if someone is just cursing us
maybe we're not allowed according to the
police to use pepper spray to just get
them away from us and so it's going to
depend on the officer so
if you're in a situation where you've
had to use pepper spray and you've
called the police because you're scared
i mean you're rightful use the pepper
spray and you're scared
or the police get involved
it's going to be really important that
the way you put it to the police makes
it look like you just weren't mad and
getting even with someone right it
wasn't a relative that wasn't behaving
so you sprayed them to get the the heck
out of your room or your car or whatnot
you want to make it very clear
to law enforcement that i only use this
because i was literally being attacked
pushed shoved like this um something
that was uh you know it needs to be true
but something that
justifies your use of of that type of
force because it is a use of force
so um an example where uh it might be
justified in the officer's minds as
someone's trying to get into your car
right that's you know someone's trying
to get in your car
and uh it's clear that you have reasons
to believe they wish you harm well that
car is sort of attached to you so you
get a little more leeway there to keep
them from entering your property in my
opinion right this is just information
not legal advice but in my opinion you
usually get a little more leeway there a
little more leeway if someone's trying
to get into your home a little less
leeway if you're in a bar or something
right
police are going to come and look at
you know what was the reason
that the pepper spray was used and also
what happened to the person that the
pepper spray was used on right if they
fell and cracked open their head and now
they have a
fractured skull we've got more problems
right because
there's more
injury that was created by our use of
force even though we know it was
justified
the more scrutiny that's going to be put
on the person using the force or the
pepper spray in this case so
if
you never get to tell your side of the
story uh to the the police and you hear
the police are involved then it's you
know it's definitely time to get a hold
of an attorney so they can think about
whether or not um you need to uh put out
your side of the story or not to the
police it's generally not a great idea
to do that on your own but oftentimes
these are situations between people who
don't know each other the use of that
type of pepper spray and believe it or
not the original aggressor the one who
caused
the suspect
in this case who used the pepper spray
to use the pepper spray is often the one
who then calls the police
right they then call the police because
they're you know they can't see and
they've got you know red in their eyes
and they can't believe they've been
attacked in that way
and so it's very common
for
people in the defense bar to see a
situation where
there's an aggressor the person defends
themself in the way they think best with
pepper spray and then it's the aggressor
who calls the police
so
something to be aware of
what what i typically uh
will try to do in these situations is
really work with the client to go
through
exactly how they were feeling
exactly what it is in their background
that made them
feel that way and exactly what is it in
the relationship
between the person who was pepper
sprayed and the user of the pepper spray
that caused such fear of imminent harm
to the person using the pepper spray
again we want to show that we're
actually being physically attacked or we
had a reasonable fear of imminent harm
in the harm was commensurate or
proportional to the amount of force that
we used and we want to show that we use
the minimal amount of force to protect
ourselves and therefore our action would
be legal
so
there's lots of other permutations i've
seen all types of cases with pepper
spray and drive through lines
in it you know different types of fast
food restaurants where there's a a fight
about things what we don't want to do is
we don't want to portray ourselves as we
got angry so we pepper sprayed the son
of a gun right if if it appears that we
use this
non-lethal form of defense in an
aggressive unjustified manner we're
going to get arrested we're going to get
arrested we're going to get charged and
so we've got to be careful of what we
say and how we say it and when we you
know use this type of force so
i hope you found this video useful if so
please like and please subscribe and hey
if you're in this type of situation
you're worried about something that's
happened you think you might be charged
with a crime or even worse you have been
feel free to give my office a call again
we've been defending people treasure
with christ for more than 20 years we'll
listen to what happened we'll identify a
way forward and we will be there for you
thank you
[Music]
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