U.S. v. Bates
| Decision Date | 05 November 2010 |
| Docket Number | Criminal No. 09–10357–PBS. |
| Citation | 750 F.Supp.2d 342 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of Americav.Anthony BATES, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
William W. Fick, Federal Public Defender Office, District of Massachusetts, Floor Boston, MA, for Defendant.Robert E. Richardson, United States Attorney's Office, Boston, MA, for Plaintiff.
Defendant Anthony Bates has moved to suppress a gun and all other evidence seized during a warrantless search of his person and backpack on September 29, 2009. Among other things, the government argues that all of the facts available to the police at the time of the stop gave them reasonable suspicion that Mr. Bates was engaged in criminal activity, and that police legally seized the weapon when they felt it through the defendant's backpack. A hearing was held on September 14, 2010 and September 16, 2010. Boston Police Officers Vincent Stancato and Keith Tolland testified for the government, and the Defendant Anthony Bates testified on his own behalf. The MOTION TO SUPPRESS is DENIED.
On September 21, 2009 a woman called 911 to report a man with a gun. The woman told the 911 operator that she was at 17 Carney Court in Charlestown and that “my mother called me, my niece was coming over my mother's with the baby and her boyfriend, I think he has a gun in his backpack.” (Tr. of 911 Call.) When asked “why do you think he has [a gun]?” the caller responded: “Because somebody told me, they think that he has one.” ( Id.)
The caller went on to provide identifying characteristics about the man, including that he was Black, 5'2? with braids, and that he was wearing all black with a blue backpack. She also reported that she thought the man had a warrant. After consulting with her mother, who is barely audible on a recording of the call, the caller stated that the man was 24 years old and named Anthony Bates. ( Id.)
The caller also provided information about the man's location. Early on in the call she reported that he was on the street and walking toward a laundromat. Later, she told the operator that the man was on the corner of Monument Street and the “main road that runs off Monument,” and that he was heading toward Sullivan Station where she guessed that he would take the train back home to Attleboro. ( Id.) Then she said that he had changed directions before stopping in front of the “United National Market,” where he was smoking a cigarette. ( Id.) Finally, she reported that the police had arrived and that the man was fleeing from officers while they followed after him. ( Id.) Throughout this final part of the call, the caller seemed panicked and eager to provide police with information about the man's whereabouts.
The operator never asked the caller her name. But throughout the call, the caller provided identifying information. She told the operator that she was currently at 17 Carney Court in Charlestown and that she was the aunt of the man's girlfriend. Twice she stated that she was from Revere. The operator also obtained other identifying information including the woman's cell phone number, which she entered into the CAD system, through which it was ultimately relayed to the police.
As the call was in progress, police officers began to receive information about the tip over the radio from dispatch and through the CAD system, which provides a short written synopsis of the relevant information and is visible on the computers in police vehicles. Responding officers included Officer Vincent Stancato and Robert Muller in a marked police vehicle; Officer Keith Tolland in another vehicle; and Officer John Breen, who was performing a police detail nearby. While driving, Officers Stancato and Muller saw someone fitting the description given by the caller on the corner of Monument Street and Bunker Hill Street. The man was the defendant in this case, Anthony Bates. The officers parked their car across the street from the defendant, from which point his head and shoulders were visible to them. They exited their vehicle, identified themselves and approached him with their guns drawn, ordering him to drop to the ground. The defendant turned and began running. Officer Stancato returned to the police car to drive after the defendant, while Officer Muller followed him on foot. Officers Breen and Tolland joined the pursuit. The police ultimately caught up to the defendant just after he turned off of Beacon Hill Street onto Concord Avenue. Officers once again ordered the defendant to the ground, and this time he complied.
There is considerable dispute over how and when the officers ultimately discovered the defendant's firearm. Officers Breen and Tolland claim that they easily felt the barrel and identified it as part of a firearm as they grabbed the backpack to take it off the defendant's back.1 After removing the backpack, the officers opened it, and found what they again perceived to be a gun wrapped in a thin cloth. They testified that the gun was positioned in the backpack in front of a plastic divider with its barrel pointing up. They removed the cloth to reveal the firearm.
The police report written by Officer Stancato describes a less clear order of events. It states:
Officer J. Breen & Officer K. Tolland from the Ak01F car, removed the blue backpack from the suspect, effectively separating the suspect from the possible weapon. Officers noted that the backpack was heavy and there appeared to be what felt like a weapon inside. Officer Tolland & Breen opened the blue backpack and observed a heavy object wrapped in a black cloth inside the backpack and upon feeling the black cloth bag the officers felt a long hard solid object which based upon the officers experience, appeared to be the barrel of a handgun. (Ex. 7.)
While this narrative is unclear on the precise chronology, it suggests that the officers felt the weapon just after the man was separated from the backpack.
The defendant's testimony did not address when the police officers discovered the weapon, but it did describe a different orientation of the gun within the bag. The defendant claims that the gun was wrapped in the cloth and positioned behind the plastic divider with the barrel pointing down. When the gun was positioned in this manner, the Court could not feel it while touching the outside of the backpack.
The Court finds that officers Breen and Tolland felt the weapon as they were removing the backpack from the defendant's back. It is not clear if the backpack was still on the defendant's back or if it had just been removed when officers first felt the gun, but either way they felt it during the scrum, when the defendant was still in close proximity to the bag and the weapon. The Court also finds that the gun was likely positioned in front of the clear plastic divider, not behind it as the defendant testified. Thus, even if the gun's barrel were pointed downward, the officers would still have been able to feel the weapon through the backpack's exterior. The firearm at issue in this case is large and the backpack the defendant was carrying it in is quite small. It would have been difficult for officers not to feel the gun through the bag while removing it from the defendant.
After discovering the weapon, the officers placed the defendant under arrest. He proved to have had a warrant out for his arrest issued by Taunton District Court on August 6, 2009 for motor vehicle offenses.
The Supreme Court has held that when a police officer makes a “brief investigatory stop[ ] of [a] person[ ] [or] vehicle[ ] that fall[s] short of traditional arrest ... the Fourth Amendment is satisfied if the officer's action is supported by reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot.” United States v. Monteiro, 447 F.3d 39, 43 (1st Cir.2006) (quoting United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002)) (internal quotation marks omitted). When law enforcement officers perform a “ Terry stop”, they do not need a warrant, but they must “be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant [the] intrusion.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). The officers may draw on their experience and training in forming beliefs about the subject of a stop, Monteiro, 447 F.3d at 43 (citing Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273, 122 S.Ct. 744), but “subjective good faith” and “inarticulate hunches” are not enough. Terry, 392 U.S. at 22, 88 S.Ct. 1868. When making an assessment of whether reasonable suspicion exists, “the facts [must] be judged against an objective standard,” the question being whether “the facts available to the officer at the moment of the search [would] ‘warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief’ that the action taken was appropriate[.]” Id. at 21–22, 88 S.Ct. 1868.
Both the initial stop and the officers' actions after a stop are subject to Fourth Amendment analysis. Accordingly, courts have developed a “two-pronged inquiry,” which asks first “whether the officer's action was justified at its inception, and [second] whether the action taken was reasonably related to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.” United States v. Am, 564 F.3d 25, 29 (1st Cir.2009) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
At issue in this motion are both the constitutionality of the initial stop and the constitutionality of the officers' seizure of the guns and ammunition from the defendant's backpack. After considering the evidence presented, the Court concludes that both withstand constitutional scrutiny.
The defendant argues that the initial stop in this case was unconstitutional because it was based on an unreliable anonymous tip that did not refer to any specific illegal activities, and that the defendant's flight in response to the...
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