Commonwealth v. Willis

*815Wilkins, J.

We once again consider the highly fact-based questions whether, in particular circumstances, (1) a police stop of a defendant was an arrest or merely a threshold inquiry and (2), if it was a threshold inquiry, whether there was a sufficient factual basis for conducting that preliminary inquiry.1 A judge sitting in the Boston Municipal Court ruled that the police arrested the defendant and that they lacked probable cause to do so. He also concluded that, even if the police had not arrested the defendant, but had only detained him temporarily, the police had no justified reasonable…