You're wrong both de jure and de facto, but thanks for dropping by.

have you not heard of stop and frisk? bloomberg would love to have a call with you and talk about it!

They still need reasonable suspicion: https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-rights/what-is-sto....

"Reasonable suspicion" is a joke. The cop writes down that they saw someone in an area known for criminal activity acting in a furtive manner, with something in their pocket whose outline is consistent with the appearance of weapons and/or drugs. Done and done.

They can do whatever they like to harass you, including arrest you. You may or may not have a civil rights case afterwards, but probably not unless their behavior was particularly egregious.

"You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride."

I can give you an n=1; I have been detained by police for walking around in a suburb.

I was 18 and in community college. I couldn't drive so relied on rides to and from. Sometimes I had several hours between classes so initially I went for long walks since there wasn't much else to do. There was a quiet neighborhood across the street so I usually walked around there.

That stopped after a cop drove up to me and ordered me to state my business. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I'm just walking around," I said. "I-"

"_Why_?" he asked, looking incredulous, like I had just said I had been trying to skateboard on the back of a turtle.

Apparently he had been called because of my "suspicious activity": there were some cool rocks on the shoulder of the road that I had stopped and fussed over. (And probably pocketed, because hey, cool rocks)

There's your reasonable suspicion: college kid picking up interesting stones from the public shoulder of a road.

If Mr. Policeman says you look suspicious, guess who's getting stopped?

Were you actually detained?

I'm not saying the cop can't ask you questions, I'm saying he can't demand your ID and run it for warrants, and you're free to leave that situation if you want.

Come on... Practically, the police can do whatever they want, and it's up to the victim to fight it in court if it was wrong. If an officer wants to detain you without reasonable suspicion, they're going to do it, regardless of whether it is legal. If they want to arrest you without probable cause, they are going to do it.

The OP said they were "detained", and then as evidence cited a story where they were not, in fact, detained.

That feels OK to point out.