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Old July 7, 2013, 06:38 PM   #49
sigcurious
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Join Date: May 25, 2011
Posts: 1,755
No...you need RAS that they are committing, about to, or have committed a crime. Absent of specific state/local law that would make being armed/accidental revealing a crime, being armed in itself is not cause to conduct a detention and search (aka terry stop). That's vastly different than, just approaching someone, detaining them and searching them. Someone just walking down the street absent of those factors, is not free game for a terry stop.

If you actually read Terry, what made the detention and search reasonable was that the officer involved, noted distinctly suspicious behavior, specifically what amounted to casing the building, and was able to articulate based on that they there was suspicion of crime afoot. The terry decision is not "and or" being armed...its that based on suspicion of a crime, while the officer initiates a detention while investigating the possible crime, they may conduct cursory search for officer safety.

So again: No, an order to lift your shirt, barring any other evidence of wrong doing is not automatically a lawful order.
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