This court most recently addressed a police officer's liability for a private party's seizure of property in
Marcus. There, a private citizen, McCollum, was attempting to repossess a car from Marcus.
See id. at 816. McCollum made an on-duty police officer, Wilson, who was parked across the street from the car to be repossessed, aware of what McCollum was going to do.
See id. The officer remained across the street while McCollum, accompanied by a tow truck driver, attempted to repossess the car from Marcus' residential driveway.
Id. Marcus and her minor son came out of their residence and heatedly protested the repossession, asserting McCollum was seizing the wrong car.
Id. That turned out to be true.
Id. Officer Wilson eventually called for “back-up” and then drove over and joined this discussion.
Id. Three other officers soon arrived on the scene.
Id. The residents explained to Officer Wilson that McCollum had no legal interest in the car he was trying to take.
Id. The officers did not request any documentation from McCollum that would support his claim to the car.
Id. At one point during this discussion, Officer Wilson poked the minor resident in the chest with sufficient force to move him backwards.
Id. Although the officers told Marcus that “repossession was a civil matter in which the police could not be involved, they also told Mrs. Marcus and [her son] to stop their interference, advising ‘let them do what they're going to do and take it up in small claims court.’ ”
Id. Marcus reported that the officers told her and her son that “if the situation escalated, someone would be going to jail” and that Marcus and her son “should keep our mouth[s] shut, go back in the house or we would indeed go to jail that day.”
Id. at 817 (quotation omitted). Yet under governing Oklahoma law, all a citizen would have had to do to thwart such a repossession was to protest in some minor way: “[t]he general rule is that a debtor's request for the financer to leave the car alone must be obeyed.”
Id. at 820 (quotation omitted). However, because Marcus and her son “took [the officer's] statements as threats directed toward them, they followed the officers' instructions and allowed the car to be towed away.”
Id. at 817 (quotation omitted).