Gry,
Those VA cases directly correlate with Terry and don't override. Terry v Ohio SCOTUS doesn't set forth exact lines to reasonableness since each incident is never exactly the same, and since then, there have been many other landmark cases also establishing RAS stops (I listed a couple in my previous posts). It's more of a guide and the VA Supreme Court uses the SCOTUS to help interpret. You are only looking at Terry and Terry alone to make your own judgements, when in reality, there has been some rulings already narrowing down reasonableness (not overriding). You only rely on Terry and IN YOUR OWN OPINION, believe it does not reach reasonable suspicion in that one court case.
If you even take Terry alone... it was an officer who saw a couple guys (no tips of criminal activity or witnesses) standing on a corner not engaging in any criminal behavior. The officer was able to articulate a legal stop and frisk and pulled out a concealed handgun. How was that man more dangerous than a MWAG threatening/brandishing 10 mins prior? How can you argue that was legal and stopping a man w/a gun at a brandishing call (given the numerous other factors I already listed) would be illegal to stop and investigate? I am not going to go back and restate the obvious RAS and case laws. You have an incorrect grasp on the law as it is on paper.
Side note: I didn't mean any disrespect by shortening your name, I sometimes use a smaller computer to respond, which cuts off the names after I click respond. Instead of attempting to memorize your entire name, I tried to abbreviate what I remembered.
You are missing my point. In Terry, the Court specifically used the phrase "armed and dangerous", rather than simply saying "armed". By using the longer phrase, it indicates that the shorter phrase is not sufficient in and of itself, otherwise there's no reason for using the extra wording.
Basic English construction then tells us that being armed, in and of itself, is not sufficient reason to perform a Terry stop.
In fact, if you read Terry in more detail, it supports everything I've been saying:
When an officer is justified in believing that the individual whose suspicious behavior he is investigating at close range is armed and presently dangerous to the officer or to others, it would appear to be clearly unreasonable to deny the officer the power to take necessary measures to determine whether the person is, in fact, carrying a weapon and to neutralize the threat of physical harm.
...
Our evaluation of the proper balance that has to be struck in this type of case leads us to conclude that there must be a narrowly drawn authority to permit a reasonable search for weapons for the protection of the police officer, where he has reason to believe that he is dealing with an armed and dangerous individual, regardless of whether he has probable cause to arrest the individual for a crime. The officer need not be absolutely certain that the individual is armed; the issue is whether a reasonably prudent man, in the circumstances, would be warranted in the belief that his safety or that of others was in danger.
In Hendu's case, what evidence do you have to suggest that he was both armed
and "presently dangerous" when the police arrived? Everyone agrees that he was armed, but there is nothing in the record to suggest that he was dangerous at the time the responding officer arrived.
And that is the key part you are missing. You seem to start from the claim that merely because he was armed, you can assume that he is dangerous, thereby allowing a "reasonable" search. However, your justification for that search doesn't rely on any objective facts, but rather your assumptions about him, primarily because he was legally armed. If your assumptions, in and of themselves, are sufficient to make a search reasonable, then it effectively eliminates any protection offered by the 4th Amendment and nullifies the core ruling in Terry.
I understand that you want to make sure you go home to your family each night. I want you to be able to do that as well. However, that isn't justification for you crossing the boundaries set by the 4th Amendment, as outlined by the Supreme Court. For all the lip service you give Terry, your attitude and arguments show almost complete disregard to its actual content.
EDIT: Part of the key there is that it requires the person be "presently dangerous". In this case, even with the report of brandishing, there was no evidence of immediate danger when the officer arrived on the scene. You cannot use past events that you didn't witness and haven't verified as justification for labeling someone as a present danger.
