Frisking

In the United States, a law enforcement officer may briefly detain a person upon reasonable suspicion of involvement in a crime but short of probable cause to arrest; such a detention is known as a Terry stop.

To justify the stop, a law enforcement officer must be able to point to "specific and articulable facts" that would indicate to a reasonable person that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed.

John A. Eterno, a former city police captain describes: "My take is that this has become more like a 'throw a wide net and see what you can find' kind of thing.

"[5] Looking at "eight odd blocks of Brownsville, Brooklyn, a study found that between January 2006 and March 2010, the police made nearly 52,000 stops.

For reference, according to the Census Bureau, there were about only 300,000 Black men between the ages of 13 and 34 living in the city that year.