How do Military Police Arrest Soldiers Who Outrank Them? 

When it comes to arresting another soldier who outranks you, you always start with being respectful and tactful until it is no longer an option.

My dad was a USAF crew chief during the Korean War. He once told Gen. Vandenberg (himself!) to put his cigar out while in the hangar. Not an arrest but under those circumstances it was his duty to do it. Vandenberg immediately did and commended my dad for doing his job. RIP dad, just one of your stories being uploaded into the ether.

As a young 1LT Officer of the Day, I was called in to deal with an officer who was drunk and disorderly in a make-shift movie theater full of soldiers of all ranks in RVN. I can assure you that I was ill at ease when I discovered he was a much older belligerent CPT. I tried to invite him to quietly step outside with me, hoping to simply remove the problem from the scene. When that failed, I had the lights turned on thinking that would help and he would step outside to avoid further public embarrassment. Failing that, I order him that he was now under arrest and that he would accompany me to the Orderly Room or risk Court Marshall. Finally, his drinking buddies realized the seriousness of the situation and convinced him to avoid violence and go quietly with me. He did. I wrote up the Daily Log Report and reported to the Gp CO when he returned to base. 24 hrs later, the CPT was on a plane to Saigon for reassignment.

MP’s do not have arrest authority, they detain.

I was an MP and later a CID agent. I learned quickly to tell officers, especially colonels that they should come with me and sort things out with someone in charge rather than deal with someone like me. That left them “in charge.”

I think officer wives were more of a hassle than the officers themselves. And the higher the officer the worst the wife.

Where I’m from we have a saying. Guard outranks everyone, as in the person who stands guard at a gate or similar entrance to a military area can stop and arrest whoever they want to. A friend of mine exercised that saying when he put down and arrested a general trying to enter the area he was guarding. It all happened on an exercise. General wanted to inspect the different posts and other places but had not announced this before he got to the gate my friend guarded. My friend sees his car and asks him to stop which the general does. My friend who doesn’t recognise the general and hasn’t been told that a general would be coming through tells him that he will have to wait a little, however this should not be a problem as a bench is available so that he can sit while he waits. Problem is though that general does not want to sit and wait and would rather get through immediately. He thus announces that he is a general and commands friend to let him through. Friend kindly tells him that he indeed is not blind and that even if he had twice the amount of stars he still wouldn’t be let through without clearing it through the proper channels but that he is welcome to wait on before mentioned bench until this is sorted out. General does in no way agree with this and proceeds to walk through the gate area however as soon as he crosses the boom friend quickly kicks his legs together and general faceplants the quite muddy ground making a noice later described as being a legendary mix of confusion, anger and wet muddy misery. He is then handcuffed, arrested and put in a locked room. After some time stuff is sorted out and exercise leader and a driver comes to pick up our poor general. Both are dying from laughter when they see him covered in mud from top to toe and sporting the most embarrassed sad expression a man could have. Friend is never reprimanded and actually receives a letter from said general a week or two later praising him for a good laugh and the great work he did.

My mate is a officer in the Met Police (London), once they arrested a squaddie on leave for drunk and disorderly, no big deal, they called the MPs to come pick him up, he arrives and asks for a min to talk to the soilder, they then see him beating the snot out of the soilder on cctv, then they arriested the MP and had to again call the MPs to come collect the squaddie and their officer who was now being charged for assult

Serving in the USAF Security Police (now called Security Forces) whenever we were performing our duties out in the public space, we were always carrying the rank of the highest ranking officer on base despite what our actual ranks were. So when we gave an order or investigated some incident, whomever the officer was involved, he or she must behave as if they were dealing with a superior.

As i heard from the lord donut operator, the three steps in policing: ask, tell, make

She forgot the most important part..."Don't confuse your rank with my authority!" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

So In summary:

My GF's dad was a counter-intelligence officer in the Polish military way back when. He told me this story: One day he got a tip that one of the colonels was regularly having parties at his office with hookers, alcohol, drugs, the whole shabang. He got the order from his superior to quietly raid one of those parties and bring him in for questioning without making a scene. He was an LT at the time so he was really apprehensive about the idea of arresting someone who significantly outranked him, but his superior reassured him that ranks didn't matter in that situation. So he took a few MPs with him in the middle of the night, and sure enough the COL was having a couple of civilian friends and a bunch of hookers over. They knock on the door and say that they brought more alcohol. Sure enough someone opens the door and they storm in. They ask him politely three times to come quietly, but he refuses, trying to pull rank. Then they try to gently nudge him out the door but he becomes combative, so the LT loses temper and clocks him in the face breaking his nose, tackles him to the floor and says: "If any one of those hookers turn out to be a spy you'll be charged with treason and executed, so you can either come quietly or I'll shoot you right now." It was a bluff of course, the capital punishment for treason was repealed long before that, but it worked. The COL appologised and calmed down, and they quietly brought him and the rest of the party-goers in. Next morning he submitted the report to his superior fully expecting to be court-martialled, but his superior just said "There's a mistake in your report. It says here that you punched him in the face to force compliance, but all the MPs that were with you said he fell over and broke his nose on the door frame. Correct it and resubmit it. Otherwise good job."

Marine MPs call it ATM. Ask, Tell, Make. You show all due respect according to rank, but you enforce the regs, period. Doesn’t matter if it’s a PFC or the CMC.

Talking about US MPs. During WW2, my Dad was 12 years old,and in Auckland City come on evening. Auckland had 32 000 US Marines stationed about it while the bulk of the Kiwi army was 8000 miles away fighting in the Desert. The US Marine "Snowdrops" ( as they were called here, for their white lids, gloves and armbands ) had authority over anyone in Uniform, including Kiwi service people, by act of Parliament.

Not a military rank, but my dad told me about the time he had to yell at a Saudi Prince.

When I was a young PFC, I went to work one morning a tad bit hung over, wearing my best "I REALLY need to do laundry" uniform.

Rank isn't everything. One of the greatest things I've seen was an Army E-7 chewing out a Marine O-6 in Iraq. We were under a rocket attack at Camp Liberty (leaving the Al Faw Palace, which was Corps HQ), and I was with some gate guards (who were Tongan Royal Marines) in a shelter when the Colonel drove up insisting that they open the gate for him. They responded that they weren't leaving the shelter until the all clear. The Colonel got real angry and started yelling. Then the Tongan guards radioed to their NCOIC, who left his safe location to deal with it. He wasn't very respectful, and it was great fun to watch.

During an arrest of a drunk major-generals the pharses "do you know who i am!?" And "I'll end your fucking career for this!!" Are to be expected..

While practicing my career in the USAF has a Law Enforcement Specialist ( E-6 Master Rating ). While on duty has a Flt Sgt I and my fellow patrol partner observed a Captain exit the officers Club that was obviously under the influence. I Took action to prevent him from driving. Which turned into a cluster " F". This officer reminded me that I was a NCO and he was Gentleman ! An Officer! A fighter pilot. I did my best to get him to give up his keys. I offered to go into the Officers Club to get another officer drive him home. This officer wouldn't have any thing to do with any assistance and demand that I let him go or he would have my five stripes. I relinquished his keys and let him depart for base housing. I notified CSC/ LE desk to contact the local law enforcement departments that our base had a possible DUI that made it off base and was heading to housing. State Police caught up and stopped this officer and gentleman two miles from the base. BAT was twice the legal limit. I did what needed to be done. This pilot lost his flight status and flew a desk for six months and I continued on.