holding police officer had reasonable suspicion to detain defendant based on “information known collectively to the police,” which included 911 dispatcher, even though officer who stopped defendant only received information from dispatcher about suspicious vehicle, because citizen informants told dispatcher that defendant was stopping next to vehicles in parking lots and staring at occupants of those vehicles
How later courts described this case
- holding police officer had reasonable suspicion to detain defendant based on “information known collectively to the police,” which included 911 dispatcher, even though officer who stopped defendant only received information from dispatcher about suspicious vehicle, because citizen informants told dispatcher that defendant was stopping next to vehicles in parking lots and staring at occupants of those vehicles
- recognizing that a “detaining officer need not be personally aware of every fact that objectively supports a reasonable suspicion to detain” an individual, and that an officer may rely in part on information as relayed by a 911 dispatcher, who is “ordinarily regarded as a ‘cooperating officer’ for purposes of making this determination.”
- finding that the defendant’s conduct of pulling up and staring at an identified citizen for two separate thirty second intervals and his actions doing the same to other parked vehicles, while not overtly 6 criminal in any way, was bizarre enough to support a suspicion that he was attempting to criminally exploit vulnerabilities
- stating that “the detaining officer need not be personally aware of every fact that objectively supports a reasonable suspicion to detain; rather, ‘the cumulative information known to the cooperating officers at the time of the stop is to be considered in determining whether reasonable suspicion exists’”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Paula Sosa v. State (2011)
Derichsweiler, though, is distinguishable from this case.
The opinion
MEYERS, J.,
dissenting.
According to the majority, someone can call the police and give their name and a description of a vehicle they think is suspicious, and without any other information, *919 the police can detain the driver of the vehicle. The officer in this case had no knowledge of the specific activity that had created the caller’s suspicion, and the officer never claimed that he had reasonable suspicion to detain Appellant. Still, the majority says that “appellant’s strangely persistent, if admittedly non-criminal, behavior, gave rise to a reasonable suspicion that he was about to engage in criminal activity.” The only thing about the call-in tip that the officer corroborated was the description of Appellant’s car. The officer had no specific, articulable facts from which to develop reasonable suspicion.
I also do not see how “reasonable suspicion he was about to engage in criminal activity” allows an officer to stop someone. I thought you had to have already committed a crime or an officer had to observe you committing a crime. They might have gotten by with a community care-taking theory but I’m not buying into the anticipatory illegal behavior proposal. Nevertheless it’s the law now.
I’m not saying that a 911 caller has to cite a specific penal code section when reporting suspicious activity, but a general description of non-threatening, non-criminal behavior, that is neither observed nor corroborated by an officer, is not sufficiently detailed and reliable information “to suggest that something of an apparently criminal nature is brewing.” The majority says the behavior (a driver grinning at the people in the car next to him) that was observed by the 911 caller was “bizarre” and “reasonably suggests someone who was looking to criminally exploit some vulnerability — a weak or isolated individual to rob or an unattended auto to burgle.” Or maybe, just maybe, Appellant could have been looking for someone to give him directions.
Because the court of appeals got it right, I respectfully dissent.