CA10: Defendant denied having a “weapon,” but his possession of a small pocket knife is not normally considered a weapon justifying a frisk for firearms

That defendant may have had a pocket knife didn’t mean he was false when he said he had no weapons on him because small pocket knives are not considered weapons to most people. Defendant’s frisk was without reasonable suspicion he was armed. United States v. House, 463 Fed. Appx. 783 (10th Cir. 2012) (unpublished):

It is likely that many law-abiding citizens would not consider themselves armed with a weapon, while carrying a folded pocket knife, when approached on the street and questioned unexpectedly by an officer. To allow a search based on the hunch that a citizen walking down the street is illegally carrying a firearm, without more, serves to erode the precious protections of the Second and Fourth Amendments. See Terry, 392 U.S. at 22 (“[I]ntrusions upon constitutionally guaranteed rights based on nothing more substantial than inarticulate hunches [are] a result this Court has consistently refused to sanction.”).

An officer is free to initiate a consensual encounter without any articulable suspicion. Such an encounter may develop previously unconfirmed suspicions of criminal behavior and/or result in genuine concerns for officer safety. United States v. Jones, 606 F.3d 964, 968 (8th Cir. 2010). The difficulty in this case is that the consensual encounter did neither; in the absence of which, the evidence must be suppressed as violative of the Fourth Amendment.