Page 150 - TPA Police Officers Guide 2021

Warrantless searches and seizures are presumptively unreasonable, subject to certain exceptions. One exception
provides that “officers may briefly detain individuals on the street, even though there is no probable cause to ar-
rest them, if they have a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot.” Similarly, reasonable, individual-
ized suspicion that someone being stopped for brief questioning is armed and dangerous must exist before the
officer may conduct a pat-down.= A seizure must be “justified at its inception.” Reasonable suspicion must exist
before the initiation of an investigatory detention. Reasonable suspicion exists if the officer can “point to specific
and articulable facts that lead him to reasonably suspect that a particular person is committing, or is about to com-
mit, a crime.” It cannot be unparticularized or founded on a mere hunch. Instead, “a minimal level of objective
justification” is required. Observations capable of innocent explanation when considered alone might rise to the
level of
reasonable suspicion in the aggregate. Likewise, an officer can have a reasonable suspicion without ruling out
every innocent explanation. We account for the totality of the circumstances in determining whether there was a
“‘particularized and objective basis’ for suspecting legal wrongdoing.”

When reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we review questions of law de novo and findings of fact for
clear error. For factual findings, we give the district court heightened deference when the judge had the “oppor-
tunity to judge the credibility of those witnesses,” a benefit that appellate courts do not have. There was no evi-
dentiary hearing in this case, though, so there is no heighteneddeference to the district court’s findings of fact.

Demonstrating reasonable suspicion is the Government’s burden. On this issue, we view the evidence in the light
most favorable to the party that prevailed in district court. Here, that is the Government. We will uphold the dis-
trict court’s decision if there is any reasonable view of] the evidence to support doing so.

The parties do not appear to dispute when McKinney and the others were seized. “It must be recognized that when-
ever a police officer accosts] an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has ‘seized’ that] person.”
When Officer Holland jumped out of the] police SUV and approached the group, he shined his flashlight on the
woman]who appeared to be walking away and ordered that she return. No reasonable person would have felt free
to walk away. As a result, each person in the group was seized at that moment.

Because the initial detention must be justified at its inception, the issue in this case is whether the officers had rea-
sonable suspicion based on their observations at the time they ordered the woman to stop. If reasonable suspicion
is lacking at this point, there is no need to analyze whether the subsequent pat-down was supported by a reason-
able suspicion that McKinney was armed and dangerous. In contrast, if the initial detention is justified by a rea-
sonable suspicion, facts supporting a pat-down can develop after the suspect has been detained.

To determine whether reasonable suspicion existed at the initiation of the investigatory detention, we evaluate
each fact identified by the district court as supporting a reasonable suspicion to initiate the investigatory detention.
Our conclusion, though, depends on the combination of facts.

The district court found that the officers were “aware of recent gang violence” in the area, i.e., the drive-by shoot-
ings at the nearby gas station. The officers, according to the court, were “closely patrolling” this area in response
to the shootings. On appeal, McKinney argues his presence in a high-crime area is not evidence to support rea-
sonable suspicion. Certainly, “the fact that the stop occurred in a ‘high crime area’ [is] among the relevant con-
textual considerations in a Terry analysis.” Still, a person’s “presence in an area of expected criminal activity,
standing alone, is not enough to support a reasonable, particularized suspicion that the person is committing a
crime.” The officers were patrolling the area in response to recent shootings, but those shootings do not justify
stopping anyone absent an articulable suspicion about a connection between the person and those crimes. In one
case,

A Peace Officer’s Guide to Texas Law 144 2021 Edition