{"id":97080,"date":"2024-12-18T04:02:59","date_gmt":"2024-12-18T12:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/portal.bluetogold.com\/?p=97080"},"modified":"2026-09-17T08:46:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T15:46:29","slug":"what-factors-can-help-to-justify-a-vehicle-frist-for-weapons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/portal.bluetogold.com\/?p=97080","title":{"rendered":"What Factors Can Help to Justify a Vehicle Frisk for Weapons?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This question came from an officer in Las Vegas: what factors can be used to justify frisk<\/a>ing a vehicle for weapons? Anthony recorded the answer while teaching in Sioux City, Iowa.<\/em><\/p>\n

What is a vehicle frisk for weapons?<\/h2>\n

Today’s question comes from an officer in Las Vegas, and the question is, what factors can be used to justify frisking a vehicle for weapons? So frisking, or protective sweeps, whatever you want to call it. It’s an important question, because we have Terry versus Ohio, which covers people, right, and you basically have to articulate that the person is armed and dangerous at the time of the frisk to justify the patting the person down at the outside of the clothes. Not a very high standard, but something particular about this person and about here and now.<\/p>\n

Then you have a case called Michigan versus Long, out of U.S. Supreme Court, and that case talks about frisking vehicles for weapons. In that case, a little short background: Long drove off the roadway, he was intoxicated. The cops show up and he’s kind of ignoring commands and going back to his car. One of the officers then took a hold of Long, and another officer went towards the car and saw an open driver’s door and saw a knife in the door. And that’s a danger, right? That could have been what he was maybe going for. So he seized that knife and he started looking for other weapons. He lifted up the center console and found marijuana in the center console, and the Supreme Court upheld the search for weapons based off those circumstances.<\/p>\n

What factors can justify frisking a vehicle for weapons?<\/h2>\n

So what are some factors that can help justify the search? Well, number one, I kind of want to share with you a line of cases, and they really have two themes. One is where you’re stopping a car and you know that a weapon was involved, right? This is your drive-by shooting suspects, these are your brandishing cases. Those cases are pretty easy for somebody like me, right? I look at those and it’s very easy to articulate that we know that there’s a gun in the car based off of the eyewitnesses and the crime at issue.<\/p>\n

The harder cases are when the person is acting suspicious, or the furtive movements and so forth. Those require just a little bit more articulation, and here’s what I want to share with you.<\/p>\n

Is a high crime area enough to justify frisking a car?<\/h2>\n

First of all, we have high crime area. That will help you, but I will tell you, be specific on why the area of the traffic stop is high crime. The days of just throwing out “high crime” are kind of over. You’re going to have to say high crime area based upon my experience with the area, calls for service, types of calls, known gang activity, stuff like that. We want to have something to give to the court.<\/p>\n

The other one is lack of backup. I think about my rural officers and my troopers in the middle of nowhere making traffic stops. I am not saying that you can just pat them down<\/a> solely because they’re in a rural area where there’s not a lot of backup, but that certainly is a factor in your favor. So if you had lack of backup plus some other reason the person could be a danger to you, it’s gonna be more likely the court is gonna uphold it. The officer to suspect ratio: there’s four suspects, one officer, those things help you.<\/p>\n

Reason for the stop is certainly one of the most important factors, right? If the reason for the stop involves any kind of violence, the courts are routinely, if not overwhelmingly, going to support patting the vehicle down for weapons, especially if they’re going to stay in the car.<\/p>\n

Does the occupant’s behavior matter on a vehicle frisk?<\/h2>\n

And then finally, the occupants’ behavior. I include not only complete disrespect for law enforcement, like they don’t recognize your authority, like a sovereign citizen, they’re pushing back on you, they don’t like you, they’re telling you in so many words that they don’t respect law enforcement and they don’t see you as legitimate. Those are things which are going to heighten your concern that that could pose a danger.<\/p>\n

The other fact though is, you get them out of the car and you’re probably gonna pat them down too, right? If you’re patting down the car, you’re patting down the occupants usually.<\/p>\n

Can you frisk a car if the occupants are handcuffed outside it?<\/h2>\n

And the next thing is, do they have ready access to the vehicle? Because if you pull them out, let’s say you have two occupants and you’ve patted them down, you put them in handcuffs for your safety, but they don’t have a way to get back to the vehicle, that can cause a concern for the courts. And what I have to say here is two things.<\/p>\n

Number one, again, if the underlying crime at issue is one involving a weapon, the courts in my opinion overwhelmingly allow you to secure that weapon for safety, even though they cannot access it at that time. It just makes sense, right?<\/p>\n

And then the second thing is, if you have all those different cases where they just seem like they’re furtive movements and they pose a danger to you, don’t forget that at the time of the frisk they’re most likely detained, not arrested. They will end up going back to the car, right? So they can be just as dangerous, releasing the handcuffs, having them walk back to the car, grabbing a gun and shooting you. So I would also throw that in there as part of the articulation if you are going to frisk a car.<\/p>\n

Where can you search during a vehicle frisk for weapons?<\/h2>\n

So those are the type of things that we’re looking for. And then if you do frisk the car, where can you frisk it? Anywhere where the occupants could access a weapon. Usually no trunk, right? You don’t get the trunk unless there’s a reasonable belief they put a weapon back there. But you get those areas: the glove box, under the seat, center console. Those are the type of places that we’re looking for a weapon, and you’re looking in weapon-sized places.<\/p>\n

So if you see a little coin purse, I would not be looking in there for a weapon. And you might say, well, Anthony, there could be a little tiny knife in there. If the court buys it, good, that’s fine. But most judges won’t buy that. So it has to be a place where you reasonably believe a weapon could be held.<\/p>\n

I hope this helps. Keep up the good work that you’re doing out there. Things seem to be getting better. Who knows what the future holds at this point, but I encourage you to keep taking our training. Stay safe until next time, and keep the questions coming.<\/p>\n

The short version<\/h2>\n