Whack-A-Mole Reasonable Suspicion

Given we know that young Black men are disproportionately surveilled, stopped, questioned, and searched by police, why do courts permit continued use of ambiguous and racialized descriptions of behavior to support the reasonable suspicion required for a stop or frisk? Because a court's reasonable suspicion calculus often relies exclusively on one officer's description of behavior, every phrase explaining how a person's body position, movement, or behavior justified the police's intervention is meaningful. This Article examines police officers' and deferential courts' emerging reliance on the term "blading" or "blading away," as a behavior supporting the reasonable suspicion constitutionally required for a stop and search. After conducting a comprehensive analysis of the term's usage in state and federal courts over the past five years, the Article groups three contradictory categories of meaning. "Blading" describes the position made as a person walks away from, but turns to look at, an officer; but also, any body position generating suspicion that a person is carrying a concealed weapon; but also, a body position indicating that an individual is threatening