Article 5. Extraterritorial Activities Of County And City Peace Officers of California Government Code >> Division 1. >> Title 5. >> Part 1. >> Chapter 4. >> Article 5.

As used in this article, the term "peace officer" means a sheriff, undersheriff, deputy sheriff, marshal, or deputy marshal of a county or city and county, or a marshal or police officer of a city or town, employed and compensated as such, whether the members are volunteer, partly paid, or fully paid, except those whose principal duties are clerical, such as stenographers, telephone operators, and other workers not engaged in law enforcement operations, or the protection or preservation of life or property, and not under suspension or otherwise lacking in good standing.

Whenever any peace officer of a city, county, or city and county of this state is injured, dies, or is disabled from performing his or her duties as a peace officer by reason of engaging in the apprehension or attempted apprehension of law violators or suspected law violators or protection or preservation of life or property, or the preservation of the peace anywhere in this state, including the local jurisdiction in which he or she is employed, but is not at the time acting under the immediate direction of his or her employer, he, she, or his or her dependents, as the case may be, shall be accorded by his or her employer all of the same benefits including the benefits of the Workers' Compensation Law, which he, she, or they would have received had that peace officer been acting under the immediate direction of his or her employer. Any injury, disability, or death incurred under the circumstances described in this section shall be deemed to have arisen out of and been sustained in the course of employment for purposes of workers' compensation and all other benefits.

Nothing in this article shall be deemed to:
  (a) Require the extension of any benefits to a peace officer who at the time of his injury, death, or disability is acting for compensation from one other than the city, county or city and county of his primary employment.
  (b) Require the extension of any benefits to a peace officer employed by a city, county, or city and county which by charter, ordinance, or departmental regulation expressly prohibits the activity giving rise to the injury, disability or death, whether now in force or hereafter enacted or promulgated.
  (c) Enlarge or extend the authority of any peace officer to make an arrest; provided, however, that illegality of the arrest shall not affect the extension of benefits by reason of this act if the peace officer reasonably believed that the arrest was not illegal.