Black Hoodie, Two Blocks, Hands in Pockets
At 2302 a 911 caller reports that a man in a black hoodie just tried to carjack a woman at the ATM at 4th and Cedar, ran north, and might have a gun. The caller gives a name and stays on the line. Two minutes later, two blocks north, you see a lone man in a black hoodie walking with his hands in his pockets; no one else is on the street. As you slow, he looks at you, stops, and turns to face a storefront. You get out and say, 'Hey, can I talk to you?' He keeps his hands in his pockets, says 'I didn't do anything,' and backs about 10 feet toward a parked car. You are alone; backup is three minutes out. You see a rectangular bulge in his front pocket that could be a phone.
1. Is this a lawful seizure, and what facts would you put in your report versus what a defense attorney will attack?
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Yes, on these facts. The suspicion is individualized and the tip is unusually reliable for a street stop:
- Named, identified caller who stays on the line and is therefore accountable and traceable. That matters far more than the content of a generic anonymous tip.
- Eyewitness basis of knowledge. The caller described conduct (attempted carjaking) the caller personally observed, not a rumor or a hunch.
- Contemporaneous time frame. Two minutes, two blocks, matching direction of travel.
- Corroboration on the street. Lone male, black hoodie, only person on the street at that hour, in the direction and distance predicted.
What gets attacked: the description is thin (a black hoodie is half the population in November), the caller only said 'might have a gun,' and clothing alone is not enough. The stop survives because the combination of reliable caller plus time/distance/direction plus corroboration is specific enough, not because of the hoodie.
What to put in the report in plain, concrete language: dispatch time, the caller's identification and that the caller stayed on the line, your arrival time, the exact distance and direction, what the person was wearing and doing, and every word of your initial contact. Do not write 'high crime area' or 'known narcotics area' as if it were a fact that justifies the stop; standing alone it justifies nothing, and it invites the argument that the stop was pretextual.
Timing point: 'Can I talk to you?' is a consensual encounter until you would make a reasonable person feel not free to leave. The moment he is directed to stay, it is a seizure and needs the reasonable suspicion above; be clear in your own mind which one you are doing.
2. He will not show his hands and is backing toward a car. May you frisk him, and what are the limits once you are patting the rectangular bulge?
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The frisk is justified, but only on the totality, not on the bulge alone. A frisk requires reasonable suspicion that he is armed and dangerous, which is separate from the suspicion that justified the stop. Here the facts are:
- The reported crime is a violent street felony and involved a possible firearm.
- He will not remove his hands from his pockets, which is both a safety problem and a specific, articulable fact.
- He is retreating toward a vehicle, a place where a weapon could be reached or retrieved.
- You are alone with backup three minutes out.
Tactics before the frisk: give clear, single commands ('Show me your hands,' 'Turn around,' 'Hands on the car'), and control the hands before you pat. A pat-down with the subject's hands unsecured is the highest-risk moment in this whole encounter.
Limits of the frisk. The pat-down is for weapons only, over the outer clothing. If, while patting, you immediately recognize contraband by touch, you may seize it; that is the plain-feel rule from Minnesota v. Dickerson. If the object feels like a phone, a wallet, or a pack of cigarettes, you must stop manipulating it and you may not squeeze, open, or dig it out to see what it is. The 'immediately apparent' requirement is the entire test, and it is judged by what a trained officer would recognize by touch alone, not by what you hoped it was.
Practical middle path: order him to remove his hands from the pockets and keep them where you can see them; a lawful frisk may follow. What you cannot do is turn 'he has a lumpy pocket and might have a gun' into a search of the pocket's contents.
3. You find a handgun in his pocket. He is handcuffed and in the back of your car. What may you search now, and what may you not?
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Arrest and incident-to-arrest searches. Once you have probable cause for arrest, you may search his person incident to arrest. The car he was standing next to is a different question: mere proximity to a vehicle is not probable cause to search it. If the gun came out of his pocket, proximity adds nothing. Do not search the parked car, its trunk, or a nearby bag on the theory that he was 'right there.'
If you develop independent probable cause linking the car to the carjacking (for example, the victim's wallet is visible on the seat, the caller reports the suspect threw something into that car, or he is the registered owner and gives you something specific), articulate that nexus in a warrant application rather than searching first.
Identification and witnesses. Get the victim's account and a show-up if the timing allows and it meets your department's show-up procedure. Record the caller's information.
Before the show-up, be careful about what you have done to his appearance, and keep him from being visible in a way that suggests guilt.
Document the sequence, not just the result: time you saw the bulge, commands given, time of the frisk, what you felt, when you recognized the weapon, time of handcuffing, and time of the show-up or interview. The timeline is what makes a high-risk stop look lawful on paper, and the absence of a timeline is what makes a lawful stop look like a fishing expedition.