Defense of Others in California Houses of Worship

What Penal Code Sections 692 and 694 Mean for Your Congregation

In my experience, one of the most common questions I hear from pastors, ushers and greeters is whether they are allowed to step in when someone else is being attacked. Many believe the law protects only the person under attack, or that their church expects them to stand aside and wait for police. California law says otherwise, and it has said so since 1872. Two short sections of the Penal Code give every person in your sanctuary, whether a member, a volunteer, a staff member or a visitor, the right to defend another person from a crime, and every congregation should understand both that right and its limits.

What the Statutes Say

Penal Code section 692, enacted in 1872 and never amended, provides:

“Lawful resistance to the commission of a public offense may be made: 1. By the party about to be injured; 2. By other parties.”

Section 694, enacted at the same time, describes what those other parties may do:

“Any other person, in aid or defense of the person about to be injured, may make resistance sufficient to prevent the offense.”

Between them sits section 693, which allows the person about to be injured to resist in order to protect “his person, or his family, or some member thereof,” and to prevent an illegal attempt by force to take or injure “property in his lawful possession.”

What “Other Parties” Means for a Congregation

The words “other parties” and “any other person” are not limited to family members, police officers or anyone holding a license. They reach the usher standing at the back of the sanctuary, the parent in the next pew and the visitor attending for the first time. If a violent person attacks a worshipper, the people around that worshipper have the same lawful right to resist the attack that the worshipper has.

That matters, because in the first seconds of a violent incident the people who can act are the people already in the room. Nothing in your safety plan should ever tell members, volunteers or staff that they cannot defend themselves or others, and the statutes give your leaders a clear legal footing for saying so.

The Limits the Law Sets

The right is real, and it has boundaries that every congregation should hear in the same breath:

Only force sufficient to stop the offense. Section 694 allows resistance “sufficient to prevent the offense,” and no more. The right lasts only as long as the danger exists or reasonably appears to exist (CALCRIM 3474), so once the threat has stopped, the right to use force stops with it.
Deadly force is reserved for the gravest threats. Section 197 makes a homicide justifiable when committed by “any person” who is “resisting any attempt to murder any person, or to commit a felony, or to do some great bodily injury upon any person.”
Reasonableness is the test. California juries are instructed, in CALCRIM 3470 and 505, that a person acting in defense of another must reasonably believe the other person is in imminent danger, must reasonably believe that the immediate use of force is necessary, and must use no more force than is reasonably necessary. Those instructions also tell jurors that a person defending another is not required to retreat.
Defense of property is narrower. Section 693 gives the right to protect property to the person in lawful possession of it. A congregation’s plan should ask no one to use force to protect property.

A Personal Right, Not a Church Assignment

This is the point I most want church boards to understand. Sections 692 and 694 protect the individual who chooses to act. They do not authorize a church to assign volunteers to confront attackers, and they do not turn a volunteer into security.

California licenses anyone who, “for any consideration whatsoever,” furnishes a “watchman, guard, patrolperson, or other person to protect persons or property” (Business and Professions Code section 7582.1). A church that writes a job description telling volunteers to protect the congregation by intervening against attackers moves toward that licensed territory, and it invites the argument that the church undertook to protect people and should be judged by the standard of a trained security provider. The safer course, and the one my California House of Worship Safety Plan Package follows, is to state the right plainly as a personal right that belongs to everyone, and to keep the safety team’s duties to noticing, reporting, calling 911, moving people to safety and accounting for children.

What These Statutes Do Not Do

They do not grant immunity. The statutes supply a defense to be raised afterward. They do not prevent an investigation, an arrest, a prosecution or a civil lawsuit, and any use of force will be reviewed against the limits above.
They do not authorize detention. The right to resist an offense is not authority to hold, search or chase anyone.
They do not reach every relationship in civil law. Civil Code section 50 separately allows “any necessary force” to protect a listed group of people, including family members and a “guest,” and that list is narrower than the Penal Code’s “any other person.” Your attorney can explain how the two fit together for your congregation.

What Your Church Can Do Now

Tell your congregation, in your safety briefing and in your volunteer materials, that every person has the right to defend themselves and others.
Keep that right separate from the duties of your safety team, and do not assign anyone to confront an attacker as part of a role.
Give your volunteers clear, simple procedures for the actions they can always take: call 911, get people out or lock them in, and account for children.
Have your Board review its safety plan with your attorney and your insurer, and record its decisions in writing.

Defending a neighbor is one of the oldest instincts in a community of faith, and California law has honored it for more than 150 years. A congregation that understands both the right and its limits is better prepared to protect its people and better positioned when its decisions are reviewed afterward.

This article is general information for houses of worship in California and is not legal advice. Kearnan Consulting Group, LLC is not a law firm. Each congregation should ask its own attorney how these statutes apply to its circumstances.

About the Author

Jeffrey C. Kearnan, M.A., is the Managing Member and CEO of Kearnan Consulting Group, LLC and the founder of Church Security Solutions. He is a retired Assistant Sheriff of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office, a U.S. Air Force veteran, a retained premises security expert witness, and the author of house of worship safety plan packages for congregations across the country.

Author of Guardians of the Flock, a four-volume guide to safety and security for houses of worship, and 52 Lies Every Church Should Know About Safety and Security.

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