One morning, before arriving at a bus stop in Germantown last November, two brothers, ages 18 and 24, are approached by a police car. The officers roll down a window. “Are you all carrying guns?” they ask.

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The brothers, trying to get to work, say no. But the officers persist. They exit the patrol car and continue to ask questions, reportedly saying, “We’re not interested in drugs — just guns.” The young men lift up their shirts, complying with a request to show their waistlines. No weapons. They volunteer their backpacks for searching. No weapons.

According to a citizen complaint now being investigated by the Philadelphia Police Department, the officers leave without telling the brothers why they were questioned in the first place. (The brothers’ names are being withheld per the policy of the Citizens Police Oversight Commission.)

Pennsylvania courts recognize three types of police-citizen interactions, the lowest level being mere encounters, which, according to the brothers’ account, is what happened to them. While the other two types are more familiar to citizens — investigative detentions occur when an officer has reasonable suspicion to hold you (like during a stop-and-frisk); custodial detentions occur when officers have probable cause for an arrest — a mere encounter is supposed to be a consensual exchange of information. Unlike the other kinds of stops, the PPD does not require officers to log them.

Per the PPD, a mere encounter involves a citizen who is free to leave at any point. “[The] citizen is under no obligation to engage the officer or provide identification,” reads a PPD directive. It continues, “a refusal to comply with requests and conversations DOES NOT [note: capitalization in the directive] provide the officer with any additional suspicion.”

Being technically free to leave does not mean people actually feel that way.

“For many community members, this doesn’t feel voluntary,” says Tonya McClary, the executive director of the Citizens Police Oversight Commission (CPOC), an independent city agency that works with the Philadelphia Police Department to monitor police misconduct. “They’re not told that they’re free to leave,” says McClary. “They’re not told by the officer, ‘You don’t have to answer my question. You don’t have to lift up your shirt.'”

Without the officers’ version of events, “we can’t know 100 percent whether they had reasonable suspicion because we only have the complainants’ perspective,” says Catherine Twigg, CPOC’s general counsel. “But given the way that the officers acted, it was most likely a mere encounter. In which case, the brothers are legally permitted to leave, to refuse to answer a question, or to decline to lift up their shirts.”

“Case law does not comport with reality… It is time to dispel the notion of a ‘mere encounter.’ The concept is a legal fiction.” — Superior Court Judge John L. Musmanno

This summer, CPOC announced an effort to establish a clearer picture of mere encounters in Philadelphia. An initial review of data — taken from four police districts (the 15th, 18th, 22nd, and 24th) during a six-month period from December 2025 to June 2025 — found that mere encounters accounted for 6 percent of all police incidents in those districts. Despite the requirement to turn on their body cameras, CPOC found that body-worn camera video was only available for about 21 percent of incidents classified as mere encounters in the dataset.

Of course, with crime declining in major ways across the city, it begs the question of whether mere encounters are contributing to public safety. But when asked that very question, the PPD responded: “The Philadelphia Police Department has devoted significant time and resources to ensuring officers understand and comply with constitutional policing standards, including the distinction between mere encounters, investigative detentions, and lawful searches,” an unnamed spokesperson wrote in an email. “We remain committed to protecting both public safety and the constitutional rights of every Philadelphian.”

Without more robust data, the full scope and impact of mere encounters remain unknown — which is why CPOC is appealing to the public for help. (If you have experienced a mere encounter with Philadelphia police, for better or for worse, CPOC would like to hear about it via a survey link here.)

No clear data

One Philadelphia mother recently filed a complaint with the PPD alleging that two officers questioned her 13-year-old son. They asked if he had a gun and to lift up his coat so they could see his waistband. According to CPOC, “no record of this interaction could be found by [PPD] Internal Affairs.”

It’s one example of why CPOC is now trying to determine how frequently these interactions are happening, where, and to whom.

“People are really filing the complaints because they’re not sure what’s going on,” says McClary. “They’re doing regular everyday things like walking to a bus stop, walking through their neighborhood, going to work. And then all of a sudden they’re being stopped by a police officer and asked sometimes what feels random.”

In the absence of more complete data from the PPD, CPOC publishes a monthly log of citizen complaints. While not every interaction can be easily defined as a “mere encounter,” others appear to fit the pattern. Some of the limited data turned over to CPOC includes body-worn camera (BWC) footage. Twigg says she has spent many hours reviewing this video and has come across mere encounters that go beyond the permitted scope. (Here is one recent example of a mere encounter caught on a video doorbell.)

“I’m seeing evidence of frisks, searches, [and] other misconduct happening during those interactions,” she says. “Sometimes they cross the line. These are not just allegations from complainants. I have not yet seen an officer approach someone from the vantage point of trying to learn if there’s criminal activity in the community.”

Old tricks, new name?

It’s not hard to wonder whether mere encounters are a more palatable version of stop-and-frisk policies. A stop-and-frisk is what’s known as an investigative detention. It’s also known as a “Terry” frisk, based on the 1968 U.S. Supreme Court decision Terry v. Ohio, making the stop legal only if an officer has reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime. For a frisk, an officer can only pat down someone’s clothing if they have a reasonable suspicion that the person is “armed and presently dangerous.”

In 2010, the ACLU and civil rights attorneys filed a federal class action lawsuit (Bailey v. City of Philadelphia) questioning the legality of stop-and-frisks in Philadelphia. Police conducted more than 250,000 pedestrian stops in 2009, making Philadelphia the city with the highest per-capita stop rate in the country. Black and Latino residents accounted for nearly 90 percent of all stops; Black Philadelphians were stopped at twice the rate of White residents. The lawsuit proved that stop-and-frisks yielded a gun about 1 percent of the time.

As a result of the lawsuit, the PPD entered into a consent decree, agreeing to log and save data related to stop-and-frisks while increasing training and monitoring of these practices. As of June 2024, according to the ACLU, the number of stop-and-frisks dropped by 85 to 90 percent. The lasting impact on crime prevention has remained unclear. Since the lawsuit was filed, crime has climbed — due to policies, leadership and the pandemic — and then significantly dropped over the last few years.

Despite the requirement to turn on their body cameras, CPOC found that body-worn camera video was only available for about 21 percent of incidents classified as mere encounters.

If stop-and-frisk has raised red flags around protections offered by the Fourth Amendment (safeguarding against illegal search and seizure) and the Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection under the law with a due process guarantee), some of those same questions are emerging about mere encounters. “We have to look and see if it is discriminatory or harassing on a broader level,” says Twigg. “Is this only happening to people of a certain demographic? Is it only happening to Black boys, Black teenagers? We’re certainly hearing a lot from folks in that category and from their parents.”

One of the reasons why a mere encounter can be confusing for the public is that there’s no requirement in PPD policy for officers to tell you what kind of interaction you’re having. Is it a mere encounter, or is it more?

“That’s why you often see people being advised by know-your-rights trainers to ask, ‘Am I being detained?’” says Twigg. “The officer knows what they intend to do and they know whether they have suspicion or not, but you don’t know. There’s a power imbalance — there’s an information imbalance.”

Know your rights

There’s an endless supply of Pennsylvania case law on the three different kinds of police-citizen interactions. It’s up to the courts to determine when a mere encounter ends and when a stop, or some form of detention, begins. The line wavers, and it’s almost impossible for the average citizen to understand their rights.

“The determination of whether one is ‘free to leave,'” says Michael Winters, a former police officer and current Lancaster-based criminal defense lawyer who is a board member of the PA Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, “should always include a consideration of whether the police conduct at issue would have communicated to a reasonable person that [he/she] was not at liberty to ignore the police presence” and just walk away.

In other words, did the police indicate in some way that there is probable cause to stop them, or did the officer communicate that someone is not free to leave? The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s landmark 2019 decision Commonwealth v. Adams illustrates the wavering line of the three types of police-citizen encounters. In Adams, the Court ruled that an officer changed the nature of an interaction from a mere encounter to investigative detention when a citizen he was talking to tried to open his car door to get out.

The officer immediately closed the driver’s door, saying he did so while waiting for backup, and that prioritizing his safety justified the action. The PA Supreme Court ruled that the driver, Adams, was simply parked in the back parking lot of a business at 3 am. With no reasonable suspicion of a crime, and with no urgency to the situation, the officer could have waited another minute or two for backup, which was on the way.

The Adams incident occurred in 2016, and for three years the issue was battled in the courts. Who wants to go through that in order to prove a mere encounter was illegitimate? Adams also affirmed that a mere encounter “does not compel the citizen to stop or respond to the officer,” while acknowledging that “no bright lines separate these types of encounters.”

“Legal fiction”

CPOC leaders stress that knowing your constitutional rights during a police encounter doesn’t necessarily guarantee safety in the encounter — or at least, it doesn’t necessarily ease the fear.

In another key Pennsylvania case, from 2021, Arhawn Jones claimed he was subject to an unlawful seizure during what started as a mere encounter. An officer saw Jones walking on the sidewalk and noted an L-shaped bulge in Jones’s pocket. The officer pulled up to Jones and asked his age. Jones answered that he was 18, which was too young to be carrying a firearm. Jones argued that because the police cruiser physically blocked his path, “no reasonable person in Jones’s position would have felt free … to leave the area.” The officer testified that until he provided his age, Jones was free to go.

While expressing sympathy with Jones’s predicament, Superior Court Judge John L. Musmanno agreed with the officer because of “the law as it presently exists.” Jones, he found, was under no obligation to give his age. But in the final lines of the opinion, Musmanno stated: “Even an individual with a thorough understanding of the law would not feel free to leave a situation in which the police initiate an interaction.” He added: “Case law does not comport with reality… It is time to dispel the notion of a ‘mere encounter.’ The concept is a legal fiction.”

Ron Greenblatt, a partner at Goldshaw Greenblatt Pierce who practices, among other areas, criminal and civil rights law in Philadelphia, doesn’t question the legality of mere encounters, but when defending his clients, he says, he tries to show the “improbability” of them. “I don’t think citizens feel free to leave when a police officer comes up to them,” he says. “If police go up to somebody randomly, why are they going up to them unless they think something suspicious? That could be based on where they are, the time of day, race, age, anything like that. And as a defense attorney, that’s what you’re trying to show: What really is a mere encounter? Doesn’t mean they’re not allowed to go up to people, but they’re going up for a reason.”

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