In the Matter of the Welfare of: T.A.R., Minn.Ct.App., Unpublished, 4/14/2009. Police responded to a "shots fired" call at around 8:30 in the evening; the caller gave no description of the shooter. An officer arrived in the area within a couple of minutes; he had a hunch where a possible shooter might be and followed that hunch. The officer saw T.A.R. walking down the street; the officer, gun drawn, first tried to make eye contact with T.A.R. When that failed, he had T.A.R. lift up his shirt and undershirt, which revealed a handgun in the waistband of T.A.R.'s pants. The trial court denied his motion to suppress evidence of the possession of the gun.
The Court of Appeals reverses, failing to find a particularized, reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Appelgate v. Comm’r of Pub. Safety, 402 N.W.2d 106, 108 (Minn. 1987). Appelgate recites six factors that LaFave has identified as pertinent to stops of persons near crime scenes:
LaFave isolates six factors that may be taken into account in determining the propriety of the stop of a motor vehicle in such a situation: (1) the particularity of the description of the offender or the vehicle in which he fled; (2) the size of the area in which the offender might be found, as indicated by such facts as the elapsed time since the crime occurred; (3) the number of persons about in that area; (4) the known or probable direction of the offender‟s flight; (5) observed activity by the particular person stopped; and (6) knowledge or suspicion that the person or vehicle stopped has been involved in other criminality of the type presently under investigation.
The appellate court concluded that the only objective basis that the officer had for stopping T.A.R. was his presence in the area in which the shooter might be found. This was not, however, enough to have justified the stop.
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