Terry stop

In the United States, a "Terry stop" is a brief detention of a person by police on reasonable suspicion of involvement in criminal activity but short of probable cause to arrest.

The name derives from Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that police may briefly detain a person who they reasonably suspect is involved in criminal activity; the Court also held that police may do a limited search of the suspect's outer garments for weapons if they have a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the person detained may be "armed and dangerous".