“It is only controversial because the Supremes have not ruled on it.”
But they’ve already ruled many times on the same exact question (whether police can perform a search without a warrant or probable cause) and have always ruled that it is unconstitutional. The only new thing here is calling the search a “frisk” instead of a “search”, which is just playing semantics. It doesn’t change the fact that the Supreme Court has already ruled several times that this is unconstitutional.
Actually they have not. A frisk is for officer safety, they have the right to be safe in their interactions with citizens. If, after a legal contact with a citizen, they need to frisk the citizens for weapons from an articulable suspicion that their safety may be in jeopardy, they can frisk a citizen for weapons only. If pursuant to the frisk, contraband is found...
A search does not have those constraints but must have a legal precedent, such as an arrest, airport etc.
I doubt the supremes have ruled on this yet. It does not help conflating searches and frisks. I don’t think I’ve missed a ruling on frisks, yet. I doubt the supremes would rule against officer safety with a reasonable officer standard and that is why the NYC decision to not pursue it was surprising as the officers got hamstrung doing a legal act probably, and why Lester Holt was tremendously wrong on the constitutionality.
Personally I believe the problem does not pend on the frisk, but the initiation of contact, not on some balance of who is frisked and not actual interaction between officers and citizens which would give officers directions on how to interact appropriately with citizens.
Bottom line, Lester Holt was wrong, both in butting in with incorrect information and as a moderator helping one side, as opposed to being a neutral moderator.
DK