A police officer has better legal protections, and in practice can get away with a lot more.

But in theory, what they are supposed to be able to do is surprisingly similar.

On detaining a random person, quoting https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/citizen%27s_arrest, In general, the ability to perform a citizen’s arrest is the same for a regular person as it is for a police officer without a warrant.

So let’s say that I was going 80 miles per hour in a 55. I stopped at the gas station and you tried to detain me when I got out of the car. Let’s also say I have a licensed firearm. Also let’s say it was caught on camera that I was minding my business pumping my gas when you tried to detain me. How do you think that’s going to end up both right then and in a court of law?

This is completely hypothetical, I don’t own a gun.

But, because of the incident I posted. Even the very red GA and the Republican governor thought that it might not be a good idea to let any random yokel detain someone

https://apnews.com/article/ahmaud-arbery-georgia-arrests-gov...

Driving 80 in a 55 isn’t an arrestable offense, so a Citizens Arrest wouldn’t really be appropriate would it?

Let’s say 85 in a 55 then that could qualify as reckless driving.