U.S. v. Colon
Decision Date | 01 August 2000 |
Docket Number | Docket No. 00-1628,DEFENDANT-APPELLANT |
Citation | 250 F.3d 130 |
Parties | (2nd Cir. 2001) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, APPELLEE, v. WILLIAM COLON, |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Defendant William Colon appeals from a judgment of conviction after bench trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Kaplan, J.). He challenges the denial of his motion to suppress physical evidence and statements recovered during a stop and frisk. The sole question on appeal is whether caller information given to a civilian 911 operator working for the New York Police Department but not conveyed to the dispatching or arresting officer can be imputed to the arresting officer under the collective knowledge doctrine as a basis for reasonable suspicion to justify the search. For the reasons discussed below, Colon's conviction is vacated and the case is remanded for further proceedings.
Leslie C. Brown, Assistant United States Attorney, New York, New York (Mary Jo White, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Gary Stein, Assistant United States Attorney, on the brief), for Appellee.
Mark B. Gombiner, The Legal Aid Society, Federal Defender Division Appeals Bureau, New York, New York, for Defendant-Appellant.
Before: Jacobs and Calabresi, Circuit Judges, and Arterton, District Judge1
William Colon appeals from a judgment of conviction after bench trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Kaplan, J.). He challenges the denial of his motion to suppress physical evidence and statements recovered during a stop and frisk. The sole question on appeal is whether caller information given to a civilian 911 operator working for the New York Police Department but not conveyed to the dispatching or arresting officer can be imputed to the arresting officer under the collective knowledge doctrine as a basis for reasonable suspicion to justify the search. For the reasons discussed below, Colon's conviction is vacated and the case is remanded for further proceedings.
At 6:12 a.m. on February 6, 2000, a New York City 911 operator2 received a call from a woman who stated that she was outside an after- hours club at 1735 Rosedale Avenue in the Bronx and that The caller also stated that When asked if she wanted to leave her name and number, the caller stated
After some confusion about the address, the caller clarified that she was calling from 1735 East 172nd Street, between Noble Avenue and Rosedale Avenue. The caller also stated that she would not be there when the officers arrived because The caller continued: The 911 operator informed her that an officer would be sent. The call lasted six minutes.
The 911 operator then made an entry into the computer system used to transmit call information to the NYPD dispatcher. The 911 operator's computer entry described the incident as a code "10-10" (a crime in progress) and included the location, a description of the suspect as a male Hispanic wearing a red hat and red leather jacket with the nickname "White Boy," and the facts that the suspect had a firearm and that the tip had come from an anonymous caller on a Sprint Spectrum cell phone, also listing the number.
The dispatcher then made a radio call for officers to respond to a "man with a gun case" at 1735 East 172nd Street. The dispatcher told the officers in the field that
It states ah male, Hispanic, in a after-hours spot. His name, it states, um, male Hispanic, name is `White Boy.' He's wearing a red hat with a red leather jacket. It's anonymous. There's no call back at this time. Still waiting for, from the operator. Unit come back.
The dispatcher then told the field officers that
Acting on the information provided by the dispatcher, two NYPD officers, Claude Rhone and Sean Smith, proceeded to the club. Inside the club, they observed Colon wearing a red leather jacket and a red baseball hat. Colon was not seen to engage in suspicious activity and there was no evidence that any criminal activity had occurred. Officer Rhone approached Colon, stopped and frisked him, and found a Bryco 9mm semi-automatic pistol in Colon's waistband. Colon was then arrested. He subsequently made a video-taped statement in which he acknowledged that he had possessed the gun.
Colon moved to suppress the gun and his statement on the ground that the tip from the anonymous caller did not provide the officers with reasonable suspicion to stop and frisk him, under Florida v. J.L., 120 S.Ct. 1375 (2000). In opposition, the government argued that J.L. was distinguishable because here, the 911 operator had additional information that made the anonymous caller sufficiently reliable to establish reasonable suspicion.
Acknowledging that this was a "close call," the district court denied the motion to suppress because the tip leading to defendant's arrest had sufficient indicia of reliability to establish reasonable suspicion, and unlike the call in J.L., was not "truly anonymous," as the caller United States v. Colon, 111 F. Supp. 2d 439, 442 (S.D.N.Y. 2000). The district court also noted that the caller "made it clear that she had a very sound reason for refusing to give her name during the 911 call, despite the fact that she believed that the police, in due course, could track her down," by reference to her recent assault report. Id. In addition, the district court distinguished J.L. in that this call was recorded, thus avoiding the problem of reconstructing the nuances of hurried communications after the fact. Id. at 442-43. Finally, the court observed, "here it is crystal clear that the caller had first hand knowledge of the alleged criminal activity." Id. at 443. Under these circumstances, the court had "no doubt that the tip provided adequate first hand knowledge of a crime and was sufficiently reliable to establish reasonable cause to stop and search the defendant." Id. Defendant does not dispute these conclusions.
The district court then determined that if the call had been received by a police officer, the stop and frisk would be permissible because the information received by the officer answering the phone would be sufficient to find the existence of reasonable suspicion and would be imputed under the collective knowledge doctrine to the dispatched officers who stopped Colon. Id. Defendant does not dispute this conclusion either.
Lastly, the district court concluded that although the civilian 911 operator was not a trained law enforcement officer, her knowledge could be imputed to law enforcement personnel because application of the imputed knowledge doctrine turned "not on the characteristics of the personnel among whom knowledge is imputed, but rather involve[s] practical assessments driven by the overall requirement of reasonableness." Id. at 444. Considering the practical necessity of imputing knowledge among law enforcement personnel, the enormous cost of paying trained police officers to serve as 911 operators in a city the size of New York City, and the high volume of traffic through the 911 response center, the trial court concluded that the fact that the 911 operator was a civilian rather than a law enforcement officer did not render the stop and frisk unreasonable. See id. at 445. It is this critical conclusion that forms the basis of defendant's argument on appeal that the additional knowledge of the civilian 911 operator never conveyed to the dispatcher cannot be imputed to the dispatcher or the arresting officers, and that absent that additional information, those officers lacked reasonable suspicion to search Colon.
After denial of his motions to suppress, Colon consented to a bench trial on stipulated facts to preserve the suppression issue for appeal, and was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).
The Fourth Amendment states that the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." U.S. Const., Amend. 4. "Its `central requirement' is one of reasonableness." Illinois v. McArthur, 121 S. Ct. 946, 948 (2001); accord Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Ass'n, 489 U.S. 602, 619 (1989). In determining the reasonableness of a search, the intrusion on an individual's privacy interests is balanced against...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
United States v. Patterson
...dispatcher's knowledge of the victim's firsthand report could not be imputed to the investigating officers. See United States v. Colon , 250 F.3d 130, 137–38 (2d Cir. 2001). State troopers’ prompt confirmation of the report in an in-person interview of the victim was so imputable. See id. a......
-
Aiken v. Nixon, 1:01-CV-73.
...individual's privacy interests is balanced against the search's `promotion of legitimate governmental interests.'" United States v. Colon, 250 F.3d 130, 134 (2d Cir.2001)(quoting Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 331, 110 S.Ct. 1093, 108 L.Ed.2d 276 (1990)); see also National Treasury Employe......
-
State v. Howerton
...(S.D.N.Y.2000) (“crystal clear that the caller had first hand knowledge of the alleged criminal activity”), rev'd on other grounds, 250 F.3d 130 (2d Cir.2001). Indeed, “victim-witness cases usually require a very prompt police response in an effort to find the perpetrator, so that a leisure......
-
Watkins v. Ruscitto
...cause exists as long as the officer ordering the arrest possesses sufficient probable cause to direct it. See, e.g., United States v. Colon, 250 F.3d 130, 135 (2d Cir. 2001) ("Under the collective or imputed knowledge doctrine, an arrest or search is permissible where the actual arresting o......