Examples
A police officer may briefly detain a person, without a warrant, if the officer has reasonable suspicion that the person is involved in a crime (Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968)), and the officer can use reasonable force to effect the detention. Courts have recognized that an officer's safety is paramount and have allowed for a "frisk" of the outermost garments from head to toe if the officer reasonably suspects that the detainee is armed, and for an officer to stop an individual at gunpoint if necessary. In the city of New York, once a person is released from a reasonable suspicion stop, a "stop, question and frisk report" is filled out and filed with the command in which the stop occurs.
US Courts have held that a stop on reasonable suspicion may be appropriate in the following cases: when a person possesses unusual items (like a wire hanger) which would be useful in a crime and is looking into car windows at 2 am, when a person matches a description of a suspect given by another officer, or when a person runs away at the sight of a peace officer. However, reasonable suspicion does not apply merely because a person refuses to answer questions, declines to allow a voluntary search, or is of a particular race or ethnicity.
Read more about this topic: Reasonable Suspicion
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