Chapter 5. Suppression Of Riots of California Penal Code >> Title 1. >> Part 2. >> Chapter 5.

When a sheriff or other public officer authorized to execute process finds, or has reason to apprehend, that resistance will be made to the execution of the process, the officer may command as many able-bodied inhabitants of the officer's county as he or she may think proper to assist in overcoming the resistance and, if necessary, in seizing, arresting, and confining the persons resisting, and their aiders and abettors.

The officer must certify to the Court from which the process issued the names of the persons resisting, and their aiders and abettors, to the end that they may be proceeded against for their contempt of Court.

Where any number of persons, whether armed or not, are unlawfully or riotously assembled, the sheriff of the county and his or her deputies, the officials governing the town or city, or any of them, must go among the persons assembled, or as near to them as possible, and command them, in the name of the people of the state, immediately to disperse.

If the persons assembled do not immediately disperse, such magistrates and officers must arrest them, and to that end may command the aid of all persons present or within the county.