Cool. I realize the family did nothing wrong, but was a little surprised to see the police continued with the arrest. We wouldn't, unless there was more involved that I don't know about.
The code sections I cited covers exactly this situation for both citizens and officers. The police have the victims making an ID of the people who committed a felony, and holding them. In an abundance of caution, for what reason I'm not really sure since you'd be covered under the statute, some agencies here might choose to take the information of the people the citizens detained, release them, and go through a complete investigation THEN make an arrest. All that would serve to do is muddy the case up in my opinion. In the alternative though, the citizens could complete the arrest and have the duty to take the arrestees before a judge or magistrate, which leaves them vulnerable to getting hurt, or having to hurt one of the arrestees for resisting, which in turn, would leave the police vulnerable to lawsuit for failing to act within the scope of their lawful duty, and failure to protect the citizens and/or arrestees.
