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Originally Posted by Brush Okie
Actually you have to be able to articulate that in court with facts. They brought up the point of some one looking like they don't belong or making "furtive movements" does NOT cut it today. You have to be able to articulate a fact like his license plate light was not working (a favorite) or other factual things. To say he did not look like he belonged is not good enough. Why did he not look like he belonged? What actions made you suspect he was committing an illegal act? You are right it is a very low threashhold, but there is a standard to be met. I would be intrested to see what the cops reason for making contact is. If the fact he was simply walking down the street LEGALLY carring a firearm and can not articulate WHAT illegal action he suspected and WHY the cop could be in deep do do. Now saying that the courts will probably back up the cop.
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You are confusing reasonable suspicion to stop someone with probable cause to arrest someone. If I am cruising a neighborhood at 0300 and see someone walking down the street of a neighborhood, I can stop them and talk to them. At this point it is a field interview. The person does not have to stop nor talk to me, but I can walk with them and talk to them all I want.
As for this case, a person openly carrying a firearm in this particular area was suspicious in the officer's mind as this obviously does not happen often, if at all, in this area. That gave the officer a reason to talk to him. Where the officer went wrong was with his attitude and initial contact methods. If you are looking for the initial contact to be unconstitutional or wrong, it wasn't.
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Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures is not violated when a police officer stops a suspect on the street and frisks him without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime and has a reasonable belief that the person "may be armed and presently dangerous." (392 U.S. 1, at 30.)
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http://supreme.justia.com/constituti...and-frisk.html
This link gives several examples of reasonable suspicion and Terry Stops. Given the incident we are talking about, an initial Terry Stop could be articulated all day. Again, the problem the officer has is that he was unfamiliar with the open carry law and did not appear to listen when told by the suspect that he had a CCW permit. All it would have taken was looking at the permit.