Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: Unlawful detention??

In order to detain someone, the police must have "reasonable suspicion" of criminal activity - that is: facts and circumstances that make it reasonable to believe that criminal activity is/was or is about to occur and that the person to be detained is somehow connected.

Let's assume there was something big going on and there you were, running by. Enough to detain you? It depends, but the officers may be able to articulate a reason why they detained you.

To search during a detention, they need either consent or reason to believe you're armed with a weapon or other object that could be used as a weapon against the officers. It's not an automatic grant of permission to be able to search everywhere, but again - it depends on what they were detaining you for (even if it turns out they were wrong and you were not involved) and what facts they would be able to articulate as to why they needed to search.

Ultimately, it seems that they didn't find anything and you weren't charged with a crime, so there's no standard remedy. If they found something and you were arrested, you may have a motion to suppress the evidence.

In your case, you seem to be asking about whether or not you have a civil claim against the police for what happened. Although I don't do police misconduct cases as a specialty, these facts go hand in hand with criminal defense, so I do have some working knowledge. I don't see a case here for you. In order to prevail, you would have to show that the officers intentionally violated your civil rights and acted outside the scope of their authority or maliciously against you.

Given that they were investigating a crime of some sort, I'd be willing to bet their actions would be seen as reasonable, even though they were upsetting to you.

Best of luck.