E.D.Mich: Terry stop for waving gun permitted handcuffing without becoming an arrest

Where waving a weapon was reported to 911, handcuffs during a Terry stop and frisk was reasonable and not an arrest. United States v. Moore, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71023 (E.D. Mich. May 22, 2012):

Defendant argues his seizure ripened into an arrest the moment he was handcuffed and thus required probable cause. (Def.’s Mot. at 6.) This Court disagrees. The Sixth Circuit considered a similar argument in Houston v. Clark County Sheriff Deputy John Does 1-5, 174 F.3d 809, 814 (6th Cir. 1999). In Houston, the court observed that “the use of handcuffs [does not] exceed the bounds of a Terry stop, so long as the circumstances warrant that precaution.” Id. at 815 (citing cases). It concluded that, because the defendant officers reasonably believed that the individuals stopped had been involved in a shooting, “their use of handcuffs and their detention of the men in the [police] cruisers were both reasonably necessary to protect the officers’ safety during the investigation … [and] were therefore ‘reasonably related’ to the investigation that warranted the initial stop.” Id. The same is true here. Based upon the facts provided to them from the in-person interview with the 911 caller, the officers that initially stopped Defendant had a reasonable belief that he was intoxicated, armed, and dangerous. Thus, their use of handcuffs before conducting a pat-down for weapons was reasonably necessary to protect their safety during the investigation that warranted the initial stop.