57 Mass. App. Ct. 923 | Mass. App. Ct. | 2003
Around 7:00 p.m. on June 28, 2000, the Chicopee police received a telephone report from an unidentified caller that a man appearing to be drunk was
On those facts, a judge of the District Court allowed a motion to suppress all evidence obtained by the police, including the defendant’s statements and the observations of the police, on the ground that the police had “no reasonable suspicion and/or probable cause to believe a crime had been committed" and, therefore, no basis for conducting their investigation in front of 28 Monroe Street. We reverse.
That the report of an apparently drunk driver was anonymous did not require the police to ignore it. Police officers have a duty to investigate citizen reports of criminal activity, particularly if the conduct implicates the safety of the public, as drunk driving does. Commonwealth v. Stoute, 422 Mass. 782, 790 (1996). Commonwealth v. Barros, 49 Mass. App. Ct. 613, 619 (2000), S.C., 435 Mass. 171 (2001). Commonwealth v. Love, 56 Mass. App. Ct. 229, 234 (2002). An anonymous tip to the police is not worthless, ibid.-, it may be unreliable because the police know nothing about the informant, and the tip may be vacant as to the basis of knowledge of the informant. Commonwealth v. Alvarado, 423 Mass. 266, 271 (1996). Commonwealth v. Lubiejewski, 49 Mass. App. Ct. 212, 214 (2000). Smith, Criminal Practice & Procedure § 306 (Supp. 2002). Such a tip, by itself, does not provide a basis for reasonable suspicion to interrogate a person in a manner that would make the target of inquiry think, objectively, that he was not free to leave. Commonwealth v. Rupp, ante 377, 380 (2003). It does justify police questioning in circumstances where the person questioned is free to leave. Commonwealth v. Thomas, 429 Mass. 403, 406 (1999). Put differently, when a person is free to leave (or close the door), the police need no justification to conduct an interrogation. The anonymous tip gains strength if it provides detail about the offense that the informant observed, and the police may compensate for the deficiency of the informant’s information through their independent investigation. Commonwealth v. Lyons, 409 Mass. 16, 19 (1990). Commonwealth v. Barros, 435 Mass. at 176. Commonwealth v. Lubiejewski, 49 Mass. App. Ct. at 214.
In the instant case, the informant’s reports had elements of detail about the
The order allowing the motion to suppress is vacated. The case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings.
So ordered.
One of the officers testified, “the right front wheel was up on the curb and it was blown out and the bed of the truck was sticking out into the road.” We analyze the case on the basis of the more muted description of the facts furnished by the motion judge.