What is the most dangerous part......

[Integrity]

...of searching a suspect? It is CCW, needles, fight or flight....?

[Lfpdlieu302]

to me the most dangerous is the unknown. if i am going to "search" and not frisk a suspect, as in search incident to arrest, i'll cuff them then search. so of the choices listed i would say the fight is probably most dangerous to me. once that first cuff gets put on if its going to happen it will happen then.

[Switchback]

Actually, I think the most dangerous part about searching a subject is officer complacency. Stay alert and follow training to mimimize everything else.

CCW is a non-issue. The guys with CCW tend NOT to be the ones we worry about. And, FWIW, I work in a "shall-issue" state, where CCW is very easy to get. The idiots that make work fun rarely (almost never) have permits to carry.

[vadep]

Lfpdlieu made some great points.

That being said, personally I'm most scared of exposed needles.

[Rad Diver]

I always feel the outside of clothing for things like needles, weapons, etc.

I pull the pockets out to make sure I'm not gonna get stabbed/pricked by a surprise in the pocket.

Fighting, well when you break one well know scumbag's arm well.....no one really wants to mess with you. I got a rule: Your cool with me, I'm cool with you. You get freakie on me, you go to the hospital. You run, I'll catch you!

I had a friend who was just about to put his hand into a pocket of a juvenile scumbag, when the kids mom sad what do you have in there. She stuck her hand in and he had rigged razor blades some how. She got the crap cut outa her. And, jr. he gotta an additional agg. batt. with the Domestic Violence enhancement. He didn't warn her not to do it.

[Group9]

...of searching a suspect? It is CCW, needles, fight or flight....?

It depends on where you are, what you are doing, and who you are arresting. When I worked in Baltimore, about 20 per cent of the populations was addicted to heroin, about 80 per cent of who we dealt with. In addition, a very large percentage of heroing uses were had AIDS or were HIV positive.

Consequently, we were all much more worried about being infected with a dirty needle than we were about being shot.
Even though we all had supposedly needle proof, frisker glove. It was the only place I ever worked where subjects were searched by having them empty their pockets, pull down their pants, run their hands through their own hair, and basically "search themselves" while we held them at gunpoint in case a weapon came out.

I agree about CCW. If a guy has a CCW and is in his late twenties or older, you know A. He has no criminal record and B. It is unlikely he would have made it this far without a criminal record. So, he is probably not the guy you are looking for.

The biggest danger is getting too complacent. A few times I have been jolted when I noticed I was about to go on a potentially dangerous arrest or search, and instead of getting my game face on, I was talking to the other guy in the car about what was on TV last night or something.

To someone not in law enforcement, it's hard to believe you can go on so many arrest warrants or search warrants, or drug buy busts, that they become routine and boring, but it does happen. That is probably the most dangerous time.

[Babysmamadrama]

I have found I can feel when a guy is going to get squirrelly. If they start that looking around thing, they are going to run. If they start staring at you all hard, or start shifting their weight from foot to foot, shaking their head, and muttering nonsense, you are probably going to get punched.

I grab them quick, if I think they are going to run. Or if I think they are going to fight, I will just snatch them and put them on the ground or against something else. Preempt that stuff.