The State appeals from the trial court’s order granting Ashaunte Miller’s motion to suppress the crack cocaine found in his pаnts pocket during a pat-down search. Because the trial court erred in holding that officers did not have reasonable articulable suspicion to justify a Terry stop of defendant Miller, we reverse.
In ruling on a motion to suppress, the trial court’s findings as to disputed facts are reviewed to determine whethеr the ruling was
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clearly erroneous.
Vansant v. State,
The evidence at the suppression hearing was that officers were patrolling the area in question because of information of drug activity and of weapons being fired in the area. At around 7:00 on the evening in question, officers patrolling in a van saw sevеral men standing around a car in a vacant lot. One of the men was tinting the windows on the car and the car did not have a tag.
Officers tеstified that it was common for thieves to put a “quick tint” on the outside of windows of stolen cars. 1 The van carrying the officers stoppеd and several officers got out and walked toward the men standing around the car. Although the officers told the men not to move, Miller “stаrted walking... at a fast pace” toward the house next door. One of the officers chased him and told him to stop, but Miller resisted. As the officer forced Miller to the ground, he saw a gun sticking out of Miller’s pants pocket. The officer patted Miller down and found three rocks of crack cocaine in a plastic baggie in his pocket.
The trial court held that the officers did not have reasonable articulable suspicion of illegal activity to justify a Terry stop. Therefore, this was a first-tier encounter and Miller should have been free to leave. This appeal followed.
The State argues that the officers had a reasonable articulable susрicion to momentarily detain the men when they saw them surrounding a car without a tag while tinting the car’s windows. The State contends that, based оn the officers’ experience, the window tinting was often performed on stolen cars and the men gathered around the car сould have been trying to conceal a stolen automobile. We agree.
The United States Supreme Court has sculpted out three tiers of encounters between the police and citizens: (1) communication between police and citizens involving no coercion or detention, (2) brief seizures that must be supported by reasonable suspicion, and (3) full-scale arrests that must be suppоrted by probable cause.
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State v. Dukes,
police officers may approach citizens, ask for identification, and freely question thе citizen without any basis or belief that the citizen is involved in criminal activity, as long as the officers do not detain the citizen or create the impression that the citizen may not leave. The second tier occurs when the officer actually conducts a brief invеstigative Terry stop of the citizen. In this level, a police officer, even in the absence of probable cause, may stop persons and detain them briefly, when the officer has a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the persons arе involved in criminal activity.
(Punctuation omitted.)
McClain v. State,
The Court in
Terry v. Ohio,
that although a police officer may not have probable cause to arrest someone, if thеre is a reasonable suspicion of criminal wrongdoing, based upon specific and articulable facts from which it can be determined that the action of the police officer is not arbitrary or harassing, the police officer may make a brief, invеstigatory detention of the individual in order to determine his identity or to maintain the status quo momentarily while obtaining more information.
Lee v. State,
[A]rticulable suspicion that the law has been or is about to be violated is less than probable cause, but greater than mere capriсe. What is necessary is a founded suspicion, some basis from which the court can determine that the detention was not arbitrary or hаrassing. Thus, in cases where there are some reasonable articulable grounds for suspicion, the state’s interest in the maintenance of community peace and security outweigh [s] the momentary inconvenience and indignity of investigatory detention. Each case turns on its own circumstances.
(Citations omitted.)
Garmon v. State,
In this case, the undisputed testimony from the officers was that, based on the officers’ experience, outside window tinting was оften performed on stolen cars, this car was being worked on in a vacant lot, it had no tag on it, and the men were gathered around the car in a way that could be construed as trying to conceal a stolen automobile.
Therefore, under the “totality of thе circumstances” test, the officers were allowed “to draw on their own experience and specialized training to makе inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information available to them that might well elude an untrained person.” (Punctuаtion omitted.)
Howard v. State,
Unlike the officers in
Black v. State,
This Court held that because Black’s only actions were to leаve his home, go to a gas station, and refuse to respond to the officer’s questioning, the officers had no basis for suspecting criminаl activity. Black, supra at 44. That is not true of the case before us.
Accordingly, in light of the facts set out above, we conclude that the officers made a valid
Terry
stop and Miller was not free to leave. See
In the Interest of E. C.,
Judgment reversed.
Notes
It was later determined that the car was stolen.