Using Force to Detain

An officer’s use of force during an investigative detention must be objectively reasonable based on the totality of the circumstances known to the officer at the time. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the right to make an investigatory stop includes the right to use some degree of physical coercion, if needed, to carry out the stop. For example, an officer may handcuff a subject who will not comply with lawful orders or point a gun at a suspect the officer believes to be armed and dangerous.

To determine whether the amount of force used during an investigative detention has turned a stop based on reasonable suspicion into an arrest, which requires probable cause, courts consider a number of factors, including:

• The number of officers involved;

• The nature of the crime and whether there is reason to believe the suspect is armed;

• The strength of the articulable, objective suspicions;

• The need for immediate action; and

• The presence or lack of suspicious behavior or movement by the person under observation.

If a suspect refuses to comply with an order to stop, officers may of course use force to accomplish the detention. This is because the right to detain “is meaningless unless officers may, when necessary, forcibly detain a suspect.”39 Or, as the Ninth Circuit explained in U.S. v. Thompson:

A police officer attempting to make an investigatory detention may properly display some force when it becomes apparent that an individual will not otherwise comply with his request to stop, and the use of such force does not transform a proper stop into an arrest.40

How much force is permitted? All that can really be said is that officers may use the amount that a “reasonably prudent” officer would have believed necessary under the circumstances.38

Note that in most cases in which force is reasonably necessary, the officers will have probable cause to arrest the detainee for resisting, delaying, or obstructing.41 If so, it would be irrelevant that the detention had become a de facto arrest.

---

Footnotes

Attributions and Licensing

Unless otherwise indicated, this page's content is adapted from the following sources:

• Legal Training Handbook (2023), §§ 18.4.3, by U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers Office of Chief Counsel, Amanda Barak & Lindsey Brower, Editors. This page is marked with CC0 1.0.

• 4.1 Investigative Detentions by Larry Alvarez, used under CC BY 4.0. This page is licensed under CC BY 4.0.