United States v. Loni Tepiew, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 10403

A seven-year-old student (T.T.) gave a drawing/report saying her mother was hurt and her one-year-old brother had a head injury; the school alerted police.
Officer Nickodem, with a child-protective worker and later a partner, drove to the family trailer on the Menominee Reservation to conduct a welfare check.
On arrival officers knocked, heard movement and a door being locked inside, received no response, called a tribal prosecutor who said a warrant was unnecessary, then forced entry after warning and a short wait.
Inside, officers found Loni Tepiew with two infants; the one-year-old (D.T.) had visible head injuries and was taken for emergency medical care revealing a fractured skull and other injuries.
Eleven days later Tepiew admitted (after a polygraph) that she had assaulted the child; she was indicted for assault resulting in serious bodily injury and moved to suppress evidence from the warrantless entry.
The district court denied suppression under the emergency aid exigency; Tepiew entered a conditional guilty plea and appealed the suppression ruling.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the warrantless entry into Tepiew’s home was justified by the emergency-aid exigency exception	Tepiew: report was an unverified weekend allegation from a child; no immediate emergency shown; officers delayed (went to CPS, did not use lights/sirens), didn’t interview T.T., and could have sought a warrant	Government: officers had an objectively reasonable basis—recent report that mother “is hurting” and a one-year-old with head trauma; occupants tried to avoid contact/locked doors; obtaining a warrant on the reservation would have taken hours	Court: Affirmed—officers reasonably believed emergency aid was needed; entry falls within emergency-aid exigency, suppression denied

Sheik-Abdi v. McClellan, 37 F.3d 1240 (7th Cir. 1994) (home privacy central to Fourth Amendment analysis)
Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S. 56 (U.S. 1992) (emphasizing sanctity of the home)
Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. 452 (U.S. 2011) (exigent-circumstances framework for warrantless entry)
Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398 (U.S. 2006) (emergency-aid justification for warrantless home entry to prevent serious injury)
Michigan v. Fisher, 558 U.S. 45 (U.S. 2009) (objective-reasonableness standard for emergency-aid entries)
Sutterfield v. City of Milwaukee, 751 F.3d 542 (7th Cir. 2014) (application of emergency-aid exigency doctrine)