Police Brutality & Civil Rights
Criminal Statutes — Officer Conduct
6 statutes with plain-language summaries, case relevance, source links, and related Michigan practice areas.
Statutory text checked against the Michigan Compiled Laws, complete through PA 16 of 2026, on June 12, 2026.
Criminal Statutes — Officer Conduct
6 statutes"Except as otherwise provided in this section, a person who assaults or assaults and batters an individual, if no other punishment is prescribed by law, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than 93 days or a fine of not more than $500.00, or both."Read Full Statute
Michigan's criminal assault and battery statute makes it a misdemeanor to assault or physically batter another person. When police officers are criminally charged under this statute for conduct against civilians, those criminal proceedings create a contemporaneous official record of the misconduct.
If an officer is criminally charged for conduct against you, the criminal charge — and especially a conviction — can be powerful evidence in your parallel civil rights lawsuit.
We monitor criminal proceedings against officers involved in our civil cases and coordinate timing to benefit from criminal findings, convictions, and adverse admissions.
MCL 750.81a covers aggravated assault without a weapon and without intent to murder or inflict great bodily harm less than murder. The core aggravated-assault offense is a misdemeanor; repeat domestic-assault enhancements are handled separately in the statute.Read Full Statute
MCL 750.81a covers aggravated assault causing serious or aggravated injury without a weapon and without intent to murder or inflict great bodily harm less than murder. The core offense is a misdemeanor, with enhanced domestic-violence repeat-offense penalties in the statute.
An aggravated-assault charge can be relevant evidence of serious force, but the charge level, elements, and outcome must be read from the actual criminal case.
We use aggravated assault criminal findings to overcome qualified immunity arguments in § 1983 cases by demonstrating the force was clearly excessive under any objective standard.
"A person who assaults, batters, wounds, resists, obstructs, opposes, or endangers a person who the individual knows or has reason to know is performing his or her duties is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 2 years or a fine of not more than $2,000.00, or both."Read Full Statute
Michigan law defines exactly what constitutes criminal resistance of a police officer. Many actions that officers label 'resistance' do not meet the legal definition under § 750.81d — and even lawful resistance does not justify disproportionate force in response.
"He was resisting" is the most common justification for excessive force. We analyze whether the alleged resistance actually met the legal threshold under § 750.81d and whether the force used was proportionate to any resistance that did occur.
We use the specific statutory definition of resistance to challenge officers' narratives and demonstrate that our client's conduct — even if it technically qualified as resistance — did not justify the level of force applied.
"A person who assaults another person with a gun, revolver, pistol, knife, iron bar, club, brass knuckles, or other dangerous weapon, but without intending to commit murder or to inflict great bodily harm less than murder, is guilty of felonious assault."Read Full Statute
These statutes cover a range of serious assault offenses including assault with a dangerous weapon (felonious assault), assault with intent to commit serious crimes, and related firearm and weapon conduct. When officers engage in this conduct against civilians, they may face both criminal prosecution and parallel civil liability.
Officers who deploy batons, tasers, or firearms in violation of their training and departmental policy may be criminally chargeable under these statutes, with their criminal conduct simultaneously supporting civil rights claims.
We document all weapons deployed and the manner of their use in civil rights cases, using the criminal standards in these sections to demonstrate that the officer's conduct crossed both legal and policy lines.
"A person shall not knowingly and willfully" assault, batter, wound, obstruct, or endanger listed officials while they are serving process or otherwise acting in the performance of duties. The base violation is a felony punishable by up to 2 years, with enhanced penalties if injury, serious impairment, or death results. "Obstruct" includes physical interference or force and knowing failure to comply with a lawful command.Read Full Statute
MCL 750.479 now makes it a felony to knowingly and willfully assault, batter, wound, obstruct, or endanger specified court, process-serving, and local officials while they are performing their duties, with enhanced penalties when injury, serious impairment, or death results. The more common police-use-of-force charge is often MCL 750.81d.
If a resisting or obstruction charge follows a use-of-force incident, the exact statute, elements, and outcome matter. Dismissal or acquittal can be important, but it does not automatically decide the civil case.
We obtain the complete criminal file, identify the exact charge and elements, and compare the criminal allegations to body-camera footage, reports, and use-of-force evidence.
"A person shall not intentionally point a firearm, whether loaded or unloaded, at or toward another person. A person who violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor."Read Full Statute
It is a criminal offense in Michigan to intentionally point a firearm at another person without lawful justification. When officers point weapons at non-threatening civilians during routine encounters, this criminal standard is relevant to assessing the constitutional reasonableness of their conduct.
Officers often point firearms at civilians in situations where no threat justified a drawn weapon. This conduct can constitute both a criminal act and an unreasonable Fourth Amendment seizure.
We document all instances of weapons pointing in our civil rights investigations and use the § 750.227d criminal standard to establish the unreasonableness of officer conduct when firearms were drawn without justification.