In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 18-1559

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

ANTOINE RICHMOND,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Eastern District of Wisconsin.

No. 2016-cr-197-PP — Pamela Pepper, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 24, 2018 — DECIDED MAY 13, 2019

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and 

BRENNAN, Circuit Judges.

BRENNAN, Circuit Judge. Antoine Richmond entered a conditional plea of guilty to possessing a firearm as a felon. Before entering his plea, Richmond moved to suppress a 

handgun police seized from the threshold of his residence’s 

front door during an encounter on his porch. The district 

court denied Richmond’s motion, and he now appeals the 

court’s ruling. We affirm the judgment of the district court.
2 No. 18-1559

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Search and Arrest

The night of October 11, 2016, Milwaukee Police Officers 

Chad Boyack and Anthony Milone were patrolling a residential neighborhood police refer to as the “Capitol Street Corridor.” This area in Milwaukee is known for drug trafficking,

armed robberies, and gun violence. Shortly before midnight, 

as they drove their marked squad car through an intersection,

both officers saw Richmond walking toward them on a sidewalk. Richmond strode with his left hand free at his side and 

his right hand in the “kangaroo” pocket on the front of his 

T-shirt. Officer Milone saw “a significant bulge” from this

pocket, and Officer Boyack described the bulge as a 

“medium-sized to larger object” protruding through 

Richmond’s front pocket. In their experiences and training as 

police officers—almost 20 years for Boyack, and 6 years for 

Milone—front pocket bulges like this typically concealed a 

firearm. They suspected the same here.

Richmond made eye contact with Boyack as the squad car 

approached. After the officers passed Richmond, he changed 

direction, quickened his pace, crossed the front lawn of a residential duplex, and moved toward the stairs up to its front 

porch. Unknown to the officers, Richmond was walking 

across the yard to get to the front door of a duplex where he 

lived.1 Seeing the suspicious bulge in Richmond’s front 

 1 Richmond’s girlfriend resided at the duplex, and Richmond had 

been living there for about one month before his arrest. 
No. 18-1559 3

pocket and his unusual change of course prompted the officers to make a sharp U-turn and park in front of the duplex to

talk with Richmond.

As the officers exited their squad car, Richmond walked 

up the porch’s five stairs toward the front door. Boyack and 

Milone followed and, from about 20 to 25 feet away, they saw 

Richmond open the outer screen door with his left hand, bend 

down, and with his right hand place a dark, medium-sized 

object on the doorframe between the screen door and front 

door, which was closed. The front porch light illuminated 

Richmond’s action, but the officers could not make out what 

Richmond placed on the threshold. Nor could they observe 

the stashed object as they approached, as the bottom third of 

the screen door was opaque. They suspected Richmond hid a 

gun. Their suspicions were based on their experiences on patrol, including with persons licensed to carry concealed weapons. To them, hiding a gun on the floor behind an unlocked 

screen door in response to approaching police was not typical 

of a concealed-carry license holder.

After Richmond placed the object on the doorframe, he 

closed the screen door and turned around as the officers 

walked up to the porch. Boyack asked Richmond if he had 

heard shots, if he was carrying a weapon, and what he was 

doing at the duplex. Richmond answered no to the first two 

questions, and replied that the house was his girlfriend’s. 

While Boyack questioned Richmond, Milone walked up onto 

the porch toward the screen door, which put Richmond between the two officers. 

While Boyack asked questions, Milone opened the screen 

door “as little as possible” and saw a black semi-automatic .40 
4 No. 18-1559

caliber handgun resting where the officers observed Richmond place the dark, medium-sized object from his pocket.

According to Milone, Richmond stood within the screen 

door’s swing radius because he could open it only partially

without hitting Richmond’s back. After seeing the gun, Milone immediately used code to alert his partner of the presence of a firearm and possible arrest. Boyack then asked 

Richmond if he was a convicted felon. Richmond confirmed 

he was, so the officers arrested him. The entire encounterfrom 

when the officers first observed Richmond walking on the 

sidewalk to Milone seeing the gun and Richmond confirming 

he was a felon lasted no more than thirty seconds.

B. Evidentiary Hearings on Motion to Suppress

After being indicted for possessing a firearm as a felon in 

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), Richmond moved to suppress the gun, arguing Milone’s act of opening the screen door 

constituted a warrantless search on the curtilage of his home 

without legal justification. 

Two evidentiary hearings were held on Richmond’s motion. After the first, a magistrate judge issued a report recommending the motion be denied for two reasons: the officers 

had reasonable suspicion to make an investigatory stop of 

Richmond, and the search behind the screen door was appropriate to ensure their safety. Richmond objected to the magistrate judge’s report, and the district judge held a second 

hearing to personally evaluate the officers’ testimony.

Boyack and Milone testified at both hearings and were sequestered during their examinations. Their accounts of the 

facts leading up to Richmond’s arrest were consistent with 

each other and at each hearing, except before the district judge 
No. 18-1559 5

in one respect: where Richmond stood on the porch when Milone opened the screen door. Boyak testified Richmond, after 

placing the gun in the doorframe, stepped away from the 

door and walked down to the second step of the porch. 

Milone said everyone remained on the top landing of the 

porch, and Richmond remained close to the screen door. 

Although Boyack and Milone gave differing accounts of 

Richmond’s specific location on the porch, the officers each 

stated Richmond could access what they had suspected was a 

gun. The officers also testified Richmond was calm throughout their interaction. Even still, the officers each feared that 

Richmond could bolt toward the door to arm himself, as the 

officers have experienced in the past with other suspects. 

Richmond’s large stature heightened the officers’ concern.

Boyack testified Richmond was a “very well-built, muscular” 

man, and at the hearing the district court verified the accuracy 

of this description. The officers were similarly concerned 

about unknown duplex occupants because a potentially 

loaded gun lay exposed in the doorway, posing a danger to 

anyone outside or inside the house. 

C. Order Denying Suppression

After the second evidentiary hearing, the district court 

adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendation and denied 

Richmond’s motion to suppress. The court concluded that the 

combination of facts described above gave the officers reasonable suspicion that Richmond was doing something unlawful

as he walked down the street and headed toward the porch.

Also, based on these facts, the district court ruled the officers performed a lawful protective search under Terry v. 
6 No. 18-1559

Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). The court relied on Richmond’s exhibits to confirm the porch was narrow, so regardless of whether 

Richmond remained near the door (per Milone) or moved 

onto the porch steps (per Boyack), Richmond stood unrestrained within a stride or two of the gun and could have 

armed himself quickly had he so chosen. Last, the district 

court noted Terry searches are not restricted to the suspect’s 

person, and ruled that Milone’s search was justified as narrowly confined to the only place from which the officers had 

reason to believe Richmond could obtain a weapon.

II. DISCUSSION

When considering a district court’s denial of a motion to 

suppress, we review its legal conclusions de novo and its findings of fact for clear error. United States v. Howard, 883 F.3d 

703, 706–07 (7th Cir. 2018). We give due weight, as we must, 

to a trial court’s assessment of the officers’ credibility and the 

reasonableness of their inferences. Ornelas v. United States, 

517U.S. 690, 700 (1996) (requiring reviewing courts to review 

findings of historical fact only for clear error and give due 

weight to factual inferences drawn by resident judges and local law enforcement officers); Howard, 883 F.3d at 707 (holding

the same). “Because the resolution of a motion to suppress is 

a fact-specific inquiry, we give deference to credibility determinations of the district court, who had the opportunity to 

listen to testimony and observe the witnesses at the suppression hearing.” United States v. Groves, 530 F.3d 506, 510 (7th 

Cir. 2008) (internal quotations omitted).

We examine first whether the officers reasonably suspected that Richmond was engaged in criminal activity, and 

second whether Milone’s search behind the screen door 

eclipsed a constitutional boundary.
No. 18-1559 7

A. Reasonable Suspicion of Unlawful Activity

A limited intrusion into an individual’s privacy is permitted under the Fourth Amendment where the police have reasonable suspicion to believe criminal activity is afoot. See 

Terry, 392 U.S. at 30; United States v. Baskin, 401 F.3d 788, 791 

(7th Cir. 2005). Reasonable suspicion exists when an officer 

can point to “‘specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts[,] reasonably 

warrant that intrusion.’” Baskin, 401 F.3d at 791 (quoting 

Terry, 392 U.S. at 21).

When making reasonable suspicion determinations, we 

“must look at the totality of the circumstances of each case to 

see whether the detaining officer has a particularized and objective basis for suspecting legal wrongdoing.” United States 

v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002) (internal quotations omitted). Reasonable suspicion requires more than a hunch but 

less than probable cause and “considerably less than preponderance of the evidence.” Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123 

(2000). 

With these standards in mind, we examine the facts on 

which the officers formed their suspicions, and whether the 

district court erred in its reasonableness assessment.

Four categories of facts created a suspicion that Richmond 

was illegally carrying a gun or was otherwise engaged in unlawful activity: (1) Richmond was walking down the street 

near midnight in a neighborhood plagued by drug trafficking 

and gun violence; (2) there was a significant bulge in Richmond’s front T-shirt pocket as he walked down the street; 

(3) in the officers’ over 25 combined years’ of police training 

and experiences, a protrusion like this was more often than 
8 No. 18-1559

not a gun; and (4) after the officers passed Richmond in their 

marked squad car, Richmond quickened his pace, changed 

his direction, cut across a property, and hid what they suspected was a gun between the screen door and front door.

Richmond contends none of the factors articulated by the 

officers at the suppression hearings, standing alone, are illegal 

conduct. He emphasizes he was walking home and, after seeing the officers, continued on that path to his residence. Richmond insists that, as far as the officers knew, he may have 

been licensed to carry a concealed firearm. See WIS. STAT. 

§ 175.60 (permitting persons age 21 and older who have not 

been convicted of a felony to obtain a concealed-carry license).

Richmond’s points miss the forest for the trees: when evaluating the reasonableness of a police intrusion, we look at the 

totality of circumstances and “must not be overly focused on 

any one factor.” United States v. Swift, 220 F.3d 502, 506 (7th 

Cir. 2000).

Richmond’s presence in a neighborhood beset by drug 

trafficking and gun violence does not, by itself, support a particularized suspicion that he was committing a crime. But it is 

among the relevant contextual considerations in a reasonable 

suspicion analysis. See, e.g., Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 124–125 (concluding defendant’s evasive behavior in a high crime area and 

unprovoked flight after seeing the police had aroused a reasonable suspicion that he was engaged in criminal activity);

United States v. Jackson, 300 F.3d 740, 746 (7th Cir. 2002) (holding same). A suspect’s evasive behavior, and the experience 

of the officers, are also relevant factors. United States v. 

Oglesby, 597 F.3d 891, 894 (7th Cir. 2010) (evasive behavior); 

Jackson, 300 F.3d at 746 (officer experience). 
No. 18-1559 9

That Richmond changed his direction to head home does 

not alter the analysis. The officers did not know he lived at the 

duplex when they pulled over and approached him on the 

porch. And both officers testified he was not acting the way 

someone with a concealed-carry license would act on their 

own property. “[B]ehavior which is susceptible to an innocent 

explanation when isolated from its context may still give rise 

to reasonable suspicion when considered in light of all of the 

factors at play.” Baskin, 401 F.3d at 793. Richmond’s innocent 

explanations—including a hypothetical concealed-carry license—do not discharge all other relevant facts from consideration. Richmond argues this is new territory, as the

Supreme Court has yet to directly address the constitutionality of a Terry stop within a home’s curtilage. He cites Ninth, 

Tenth, and Eleventh Circuit cases to argue Terry does not justify a stop, seizure, or search inside the home. But none of 

these cases concern a protective search for weapons by officers lawfully within the curtilage of a home.2

 

2 Richmond cites Moore v. Pederson, 806 F.3d 1036, 1044–46 (11th Cir. 

2015) (involving the warrantless seizure of a suspect inside his home); 

United States v. Perea-Rey, 680 F.3d 1179, 1188–89 (9th Cir. 2012) (holding a 

border patrol agent intruded into an area of curtilage where uninvited visitors would not be expected to appear to stop an individual suspected of 

entering the country illegally); United States v. Struckman, 603 F.3d 731, 743 

(9th Cir. 2010) (holding the warrantless entry by two officers into a fully 

enclosed backyard—one officer kicking open a padlocked gate and the 

other scaling a fence—was not supported by probable cause, Terry, or exigent circumstances); and United States v. Reeves, 524 F.3d 1161, 1167–69 

(10th Cir. 2008) (involving the warrantless seizure of a suspect inside his

motel room and construing the encounter as occurring within the home). 

Perea-Rey and Struckman proscribed police entries without consent into 

cordoned areas of curtilage. But Richmond acknowledges that Boyack and 

Milone were permitted to enter onto the porch even without his consent, 
10 No. 18-1559

On this topic, this court has allowed a Terry stop in a structure attendant to a house. In United States v. Pace, 898 F.2d 

1218, 1223 (7th Cir. 1990), we applied Terry to uphold the stop

of a defendant in his condominium garage, supported by reasonable suspicion alone. There, the officer was pursuing the 

defendant, whom the officer suspected might be a mob assassin on his way to kill another condominium resident. Pace, 898 

F.2d at 1229. Upon discovering he was being followed, the defendant took what the officer considered to be evasive action. 

Id. When the defendant entered the garage, the officer had to 

decide whether to pursue him to investigate his suspicion or 

to let him go despite the threat he might have posed to another resident. Id. We balanced the potential for harm against 

the intrusion on the defendant’s privacy and held both the officer’s suspicion and entry were reasonable. Id. (citing Terry, 

392 U.S. at 21–22 and Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1046 

(1983)). 

Like the police in Pace, Boyack and Milone articulated objectively reasonable grounds to suspect Richmond was engaged in criminal activity that justified their entry onto the 

porch. Richmond describes the facts differently. But “[t]he 

need to resolve ambiguous factual situations—ambiguous because the observed conduct could be either lawful or unlawful—is a core reason the Constitution permits investigative 

 

Brief of Appellant at 7, 15, unlike the closed off areas in Perea-Rey and 

Struckman. He also acknowledges that he consented to the officers’ presence on the porch. Brief of Appellant at 7, 16–17, 19. Reeves and Moore addressed the warrantless seizures of suspects inside their homes without 

probable cause, exigent circumstances, or consent. Richmond does not 

contest his seizure on appeal, nor did any police activity occur inside his 

girlfriend’s house.
No. 18-1559 11

stops.” United States v. Miranda-Sotolongo, 827 F.3d 663, 669 

(7th Cir. 2016). Because the aggregate facts support a particularized and objective basis for the officers to suspect Richmond was engaged in criminal activity, their suspicions were

reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.

The sum of all the information known to officers at the 

time of the stop is considered, including the behavior and 

characteristics of the suspect. Matz v. Klotka, 769 F.3d 517, 523 

(7th Cir. 2014). Here, that information included specific and 

articulable facts which taken together fostered Boyack’s and 

Milone’s reasonable suspicion that “criminal activity is 

afoot.”

B. The Search

We next address whether Milone exceeded the permissible scope of Terry when he partially opened the screen door

to search for a gun.

Richmond depicts his exchange with the officers as a “consensual encounter,” not an investigatory stop.3 In so doing, he 

acknowledges the officers were permitted to enter onto the 

porch area to ask him questions to dispel their suspicions, but 

contends a warrant or his consent was required to open the 

screen door. From this he argues there is no specific exception 

for a “search incident to a Terry stop.”

 3 Before the district court, Richmond claimed the officers conducted 

an investigatory stop that was not supported by reasonable suspicion. Reply in Support of Motion to Suppress at 2, 4, United States v. Richmond, 

No. 16-CR-197 (E.D. Wis. Mar. 13, 2017), ECF No. 23. On appeal, he now 

describes the officers’ entry on the porch as consensual. Brief of Appellant 

at 7, 16–17, 19.
12 No. 18-1559

Even so, the Supreme Court upheld the search in Terry (a 

protective frisk) without determining whether an investigatory stop took place before the search. See United States v. 

Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 552 (1980) (explaining same). We follow Terry’s approach. For purposes of our review, it matters 

not whether a Terry stop preceded Milone’s search. 

Now we turn to Richmond’s contention that Milone’s 

search behind the screen door infringed upon established 

Fourth Amendment principles.

1. Terry and later case law permit limited area 

searches for weapons.

The Fourth Amendment guarantees the right of the people

to be secure in their houses against “unreasonable” police 

searches. U.S. CONST. amend IV. Curtilage—the “area immediately surrounding and associated with the home”—is entitled to the same Fourth Amendment protection as the home 

itself. Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 7 (2013) (describing the 

front porch as the “classic exemplar” of constitutionally protected curtilage). 

For protective searches for weapons, the Supreme Court 

has held that area searches are permissible in limited circumstances: “[O]fficers who conduct area searches during investigative detentions must do so only when they have the level 

of suspicion identified in Terry.” Long, 463 U.S. at 1050 n.14 

(concluding officers did not act unreasonably in taking preventive measures to ensure there were no weapons within defendant’s immediate grasp before permitting him to reenter 

his automobile). Area searches are allowed “in the Terry context” because “the arrestee, who may not himself be armed, 
No. 18-1559 13

may be able to gain access to weapons to injure officers or others nearby, or otherwise to hinder legitimate police activity.” 

Id. All the same, the search remains a serious intrusion so it

“must ‘be confined in scope to an intrusion reasonably designed to discover guns, knives, clubs or other hidden instruments for the assault of the police officer.’” Jackson, 300 F.3d 

at 746 (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 29); see also Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 373 (1993) (holding a Terry search “must 

be strictly limited to that which is necessary for the discovery 

of weapons”). “The purpose of this limited search is not to 

discover evidence of crime, but to allow the officer to pursue 

his investigation without fear of violence ... .” Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146 (1972).

We have similarly held that, under Terry, an officer may 

conduct a protective search for weapons of an individual’s 

person, “and area within his control,” if “‘a reasonably prudent man in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his safety or that of others was in danger.’” Cady v. 

Sheahan, 467 F.3d 1057, 1061–62 (7th Cir. 2006) (quoting Terry, 

392 U.S. at 27). A protective search for weapons “is a vital tool 

to serve the ‘immediate interest of the police officer in taking 

steps to assure himself that the person with whom he is dealing is not armed with a weapon that could unexpectedly and 

fatally be used against him.’” Id. at 1061 (quoting Terry, 392 

U.S. at 23).

Richmond points to various decisions involving impermissible searches which he contends mandate reversal. First, 

he invokes Florida v. Jardines, in which the Supreme Court assessed the permissibility of a police search on a front porch.

569 U.S. at 3–5. In that case, officers without a warrant or 

probable cause walked up to the front door of a residence and 
14 No. 18-1559

used a drug-sniffing dog to investigate an unverified tip that 

marijuana was being grown in the home. Id. at 3–4. The Court 

acknowledged an implied license exists for members of the 

public to approach a home and knock on the front door based 

upon custom and social norms. Id. at 10–11. But the warrantless use of sensory-extending drug dogs to discover incriminating evidence inside the home exceeds this customary 

invitation and constitutes a trespassory search implicating the 

Fourth Amendment. Id. at 10–12 (affirming Florida Supreme 

Court’s holding that canine sniff of front door was a search 

requiring a warrant). 

Richmond also cites Collins v. Virginia, which questioned 

whether the automobile search exception justifies an invasion 

of curtilage. 138 S. Ct. 1663, 1671 (2018). In Collins, the officer 

discovered photographs on social media of a potentially stolen motorcycle parked at the top of the driveway of a house.

The officer tracked down the address of the home, drove to it, 

walked up the driveway to investigate, and pulled a tarp off 

the motorcycle to search its license plate and vehicle identification numbers, which confirmed that the motorcycle was 

stolen. Id. at 1668. The Court held that the automobile exception—which is based largely upon the ready mobility of the 

vehicle—“extends no further than the automobile itself[,]”

and does not give “an officer the right to enter a home or its 

curtilage to access a vehicle without a warrant.” Id. at 1671.

Like the officers in Jardines and Collins, Boyack and Milone 

performed a search within the curtilage of the house in which 

Richmond resided. But there are critical distinctions between 

the circumstances governing the officers’ conduct here and 

the conduct proscribed by the Supreme Court in those cases. 

First, and most importantly, no imminent safety threat existed 
No. 18-1559 15

in either Jardines or Collins. There, the searches were performed while the suspect was absent and the officers did not 

articulate any threat of danger during their searches. Neither 

of the officers in those cases made split-second decisions, nor 

did they invoke Terry (or any of Terry’s underlying principles) 

to justify their investigations or searches. 

Second, the objects searched for in Jardines and Collins

were drugs and stolen property, not weapons. In Jardines, the 

search implicated the actual interior of the home. Here, unlike 

Jardines and Collins, at the moment of the search the officers 

had no indication Richmond had any Fourth Amendment 

interest in the home. Third, Milone and Boyack’s conduct

throughout their investigation remained anchored to the

Terry-exception’s safety justifications. Cf. Collins, 138 S. Ct. at 

1672 (“[R]ely[ing] on the automobile exception to gain entry 

into a house or its curtilage for the purpose of conducting a 

vehicle search would unmoor the exception from its justifications.”). That conduct is not unfettered “trawl[ing] for 

evidence.” Cf. Jardines, 569 U.S. at 6. 

Richmond also cites our decision in United States v. Leo, 

where we rejected officer safety as a justification for a search 

into a backpack containing a gun. 792 F.3d at 749–51. In that 

case, officers responded to a 911 call that two men committed 

a burglary. When the officers arrived, they saw two men

walking toward a preschool. The officers stopped the men 

and handcuffed their hands behind their backs. An officer 

then took the defendant’s backpack, placed it out of the 

defendant’s reach, emptied it, and found a gun. Id. at 744–45.

Leo does not help Richmond. In Leo, we held the backpack 

search was not supported by reasonable suspicion because 

the defendant could not get “immediate control” of a gun—
16 No. 18-1559

while handcuffed—outside his reach. Id. at 750. Here, when 

Milone opened the screen door, Richmond was unrestrained, 

the district court found he “could have armed himself 

quickly,” and, unlike the prima facie privacy expectations of a 

person carrying a backpack, it was unknown whether Richmond had any privacy interest in the duplex porch.

Put succinctly, Jardines, Collins, and Leo do not concern 

protective searches to neutralize the threat of a weapon in a 

suspect’s immediate area of control. Cf. Long, 463 U.S. at 

1049-50 (neutralizing threat in suspect’s car passenger compartment); Cady, 467 F.3d at 1062 (neutralizing threat in suspect’s briefcase). In contrast, Long and Cady applied the 

reasoning in Terry and its offspring and upheld the protective 

searches evaluated in those cases. See Long, 463 U.S. at 1050 

n.14; Cady, 467 F.3d at 1062. We do the same here. See Terry,

392 U.S. at 24, 26; see also Dickerson, 508 U.S. at 373. In sum, 

police may conduct an area search strictly limited to that 

which is necessary for the discovery of weapons if the officer 

has a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the subject 

whose suspicious behavior he is investigating at close range

may be able to gain access to a weapon to harm the officers or 

others nearby. 

2. Reasonable suspicion is required to conduct a 

search.

Like all Terry searches, Milone’s search must be supported 

by reasonable suspicion. To assess whether reasonable suspicion existed here, we look again to the totality of circumstances known to Boyack and Milone at the time the search

occurred. United States v. Tinnie, 629 F.3d 749, 751–52 (7th Cir. 

2011). We also balance the need to search against the intrusion

which the search entails. Terry, 392 U.S. at 21; see also Maryland 
No. 18-1559 17

v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 335–36 (1990); Pace, 898 F.2d at 1229 (upholding Terry stop on curtilage).

Terry contemplates searches to screen persons who may be 

“armed and presently dangerous.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 30. In so 

determining, “[t]he officer need not be absolutely certain that 

the individual is armed; the issue is whether a reasonably prudent man in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his safety or that of others was in danger.” Id. at 27; 

Cady, 467 F.3d at 1061–62 (holding same). Here, the circumstances prompting the officers’ suspicions that Richmond was 

engaged in criminal activity also roused their suspicions he

might be armed and dangerous; indeed, the officers suspected Richmond had placed a gun on the threshold of the 

front door behind the screen door. 

Richmond argues his close proximity to a gun does not, by 

itself, give rise to a reasonable suspicion he was dangerous. 

He also contends the officers could not reasonably have been 

alarmed at any point during the encounter because he maintained a calm and cooperative demeanor, he did not run away 

from the officers, he stepped away from the door where the 

gun was located, he did not insist on going into his home but

stayed and spoke with officers, and Milone stood between 

him and the suspected gun, impeding Richmond’s access to 

it.

But Richmond’s arguments focus on whether the officers 

subjectively believed he was dangerous. Reasonable suspicion is measured against the totality of the circumstances, an 

objective test. United States v. Adamson, 441 F.3d 513, 521 (7th 

Cir. 2006); see also Brigham City, Utah v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 

404 (2006) (explaining an officer’s subjective motivation to in-
18 No. 18-1559

trude within a home “is irrelevant” under the Fourth Amendment; what matters is whether “the circumstances, viewed objectively, justify the action.”) (emphasis in original, internal 

brackets omitted). 

In determining whether a suspect is “presently dangerous,” “[t]he officer need not be absolutely certain that the individual is armed; the issue is whether a reasonably prudent 

man in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief 

that his safety or that of others was in danger.” Terry, 392 U.S. 

at 27; Cady, 467 F.3d at 1061–62 (holding same). “More importantly ... the fact-specific inquiry into the existence of reasonable suspicion must be undertaken with due regard to 

common sense and practicality.” Adamson, 441 F.3d at 521.

Here, Boyack and Milone faced two obvious risks: Richmond might lunge toward what they suspected was a gun,

and unknown duplex occupants might access the gun by 

opening the front door and picking it up off the threshold. The 

district court found the officers’ testimony credible; specifically, the porch was narrow, Richmond was within the immediate vicinity of a gun, the officers did not know who owned 

the property, and Richmond was large, muscular, and unrestrained. The officers testified Richmond cooperated at that 

moment, but they also were concerned he might quickly 

change his mind, physically overwhelm them, and charge for

the gun. And Richmond’s cooperation did not eliminate the 

possibility that someone from inside the house could obtain 

the weapon to use against them, which they also feared. 

That Milone and Boyack testified differently as to Richmond’s exact location on the porch does not change our analysis. Milone testified Richmond was within the swing radius 

of the screen door. Boyack placed Richmond a few steps from 
No. 18-1559 19

the screen door. If the latter, there could be a fractional delay

in Richmond’s ability to access the gun and use it against 

them. Richmond’s own evidence about the width of the porch 

supports this finding, and the district court relied on that evidence to conclude Richmond was one or two strides from the 

gun.

That the officers could have asked or directed Richmond 

to step away from the front door for a conversation does not 

alter our assessment. As an initial matter, police officers are 

not required to take unnecessary risks in the performance of 

their duties. See Terry, 392 U.S. at 23. Officers must make quick 

decisions in the field, so we judge from the perspective of a 

reasonably prudent person in the circumstances before us, not 

20/20 hindsight. See id. at 27; Cady, 467 F.3d at 1061–62. Even 

if we second-guess, had the officers moved Richmond further 

away from the gun, anyone in the house would still have had

ready access to the firearm.

Milone’s on-the-spot response is not rendered unreasonable because Richmond was cooperative in the present moment. “The calculus of reasonableness must embody 

allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to 

make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are 

tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving.” Kentucky v. King, 563 

U.S. 452, 466 (2011) (citations and internal quotations omitted). The entire encounter here lasted no longer than half a 

minute, which called for “necessarily swift action predicated 

upon the on-the-spot observations of the officer[s] on the 

beat.” Long, 463 U.S. at 1047 n.11. The only information the 

officers knew during the search was that a suspected gun located between the screen door and front door was accessible 
20 No. 18-1559

to Richmond and to duplex occupants. Milone’s corresponding search lasted no longer than necessary to verify the reasonable suspicion of danger, and that search was limited to 

the only place where the firearm could be accessed. 

Based on the totality of these circumstances, Boyack and 

Milone were objectively and reasonably concerned with their

safety, so the balancing required by Terry weighs in favor of 

Milone’s minimally intrusive search in which he found the 

gun. Opening the screen door thus fell within the bounds of a 

constitutional search.

3. Deference is owed to reasonable factual 

inferences.

“[T]he Supreme Court [in Ornelas] deliberately chose a formulation that allows the court of appeals to give deference 

where that is due, but to reject deference where its independent review suggests it is not due.” United States v. Sholola, 124

F.3d 803, 822 (7th Cir. 1997) (Wood, C.J., concurring) (citing 

Ornelas, 517 U.S. at 699–700). In either case, our determination

“must be based on commonsense judgments and inferences 

about human behavior.” Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 125. To demand 

more of the district court, or Boyack and Milone, under the 

circumstances of this case would be an unreasonable demand 

for certainty where none exists. See id. at 124–125. 

The facts articulated by Boyack and Milone prompt a reasonable inference that Richmond was illegally carrying a gun.

Richmond’s activity was also consistent with hiding a gun, 

which the officers suspected and subsequently confirmed. 

The officers searched only for a gun and found only a gun. 

They did not search for a gun until after seeing Richmond hide 

a suspected gun, underscoring the non-speculative and non-
No. 18-1559 21

pretextual nature of their search. Nor was the search here unreasonably invasive. Opening the screen door provided no information about the interior of the house, the officers did not 

search Richmond’s person, nor did they search any other areas of the porch or exterior of the duplex. The degree of intrusion on Richmond’s privacy was as reasonable and minimal 

as common sense dictated in that moment based upon what 

the officers had seen and what they knew. 

The officers also acted on a commonsense inference that 

Richmond did not have a license to carry a concealed weapon. 

Both officers testified they had encountered individuals who 

possess firearms legally with a concealed-carry license. But 

those individuals never acted in the way Richmond did by 

trying to hide the gun on a door sill. To the officers, the likelihood Richmond had a license to carry a concealed weapon 

was diminished when he stashed the object resembling a gun 

on the ground, behind a screen door, where it was accessible 

to others. This is suspicious (and dangerous) behavior for any 

lawful gun owner, let alone concealed-carry license holders.

See Adams, 407 U.S. at 146 (noting a limited search “might be 

equally necessary and reasonable, whether or not carrying a 

concealed weapon violated any applicable state law”).

Based upon our independent review of the facts and inferences before us, and giving due weight to the district court’s 

credibility determinations, we see no reason to disturb the 

court’s findings. Milone’s search was an objectively reasonable police response to a reasonable suspicion of danger.
22 No. 18-1559

4. The principles of Terry and its later case law

supported the officers’ search.

Terry legitimated protective searches for weapons under 

the Fourth Amendment, and the Supreme Court has since emphasized the importance of standards necessary to secure police safety. Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325 (1990) is instructive 

here, as the Supreme Court applied the principles of Terry

(upholding stop and frisk of a person) and Long (upholding

roadside search of automobile passenger compartment) and 

upheld protective police sweeps incident to arrests: “In Terry

and Long we were concerned with the immediate interest of 

the police officers in taking steps to assure themselves that the 

persons with whom they were dealing were not armed with, 

or able to gain immediate control of, a weapon that could unexpectedly and fatally be used against them.” Buie, 494 U.S. at

333. Neither Terry nor Long involved protective sweeps incident to arrest, yet the Supreme Court held that the principles 

they applied in Terry and Long applied in Buie. Id at 333–34. 

Each of these cases evaluated the dangerousness of the police confrontations and, as we do here, balanced the interests 

of officer safety, effective law enforcement, and individual 

rights. See id. (“The ingredients to apply the balance struck in 

Terry and Long are present in this case.”). We see no difference 

between the safety concerns which justified the searches in 

Buie, Terry, or Long, and those articulated by Boyack and 

Milone. Both officers had an immediate interest in assuring 

themselves that neither Richmond nor someone inside the duplex could gain immediate control of a gun and use it against 

them. 

This decision would differ if Richmond’s gun was located 

behind the closed front door. A Terry-search like this must be 
No. 18-1559 23

limited to a weapon, in areas where a weapon may be concealed, and only when police have a reasonable and articulable suspicion that a suspect poses a danger from the presence 

of a weapon within a suspect’s immediate access or control.

III. CONCLUSION

Given the totality of the circumstances, the officers’ suspicions were reasonable that Richmond was illegally carrying a 

gun. Because Richmond (or someone else) had ready access 

to the gun, officer Milone acted reasonably to extinguish a patent safety threat when he performed a brief search limited 

exclusively to the area where both officers saw the object, later 

confirmed to be a gun, was placed.

For these reasons, we AFFIRM.
24 No. 18-1559

WOOD, Chief Judge, dissenting. The question in this case is 

whether the police are entitled to enter, search, and seize an 

object from a person’s home (including its curtilage) when 

they do not have a warrant, they do not have probable cause 

to believe that a crime is being committed, and none of the 

exceptions to the warrant requirement such as exigent circumstances is present. The majority concludes that the answer is “yes.” It does so by diluting the probable-cause requirement for searches of a home down to the “reasonablesuspicion” level described in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), 

even though nothing in Terry or any other decision of the Supreme Court justifies this step. I respectfully dissent.

I

While the majority’s description of the facts is mostly accurate—minus a potentially important detail I discuss below—I restate them here in order to stress some additional 

relevant circumstances. Around 11:40 p.m. on the night of October 11, 2016, Antoine Richmond was walking toward his 

home. Two Milwaukee police officers—Anthony Milone and 

Chad Boyack—spotted Richmond about 70 feet away from 

their marked squad car. They noticed that his hand was 

tucked in the kangaroo pouch of his shirt, which was bulging 

out. Boyack said that he had a hunch that the bulge was 

caused by a gun.

So far, there was nothing that would support a finding that 

Richmond was doing anything wrong. Like many states in the 

post-Heller world, Wisconsin permits both “concealed carry” 

and “open carry” of a firearm. See Wis. Stat. § 175.60 (concealed); Wis. Stat. § 947.01 (person not guilty of disorderly 

conduct for “going armed with a firearm” regardless whether 

it “is concealed or openly carried”). True, the neighborhood 
No. 18-1559 25

in which Richmond was walking was known to be a highcrime area, but that simply underscores why a person might, 

for self-defense, want to have a gun with him. The act of walking down the street with a visible gun or a possible gun under 

some clothing thus does not, without more, give rise even to 

a reasonable suspicion that the person is violating the law, 

much less probable cause. And at this stage of the story, there 

was nothing more. Richmond had not seen them, nor was he 

doing anything that could be characterized as flight or unexplained concealment.

With their curiosity piqued by the bulge, the officers made 

a U-turn and approached Richmond; at that point they briefly 

made eye contact with him. Richmond then “picked up his 

pace, left the sidewalk, and crossed the grass in front of a duplex at 1933/35 West Vienna Avenue.” United States v. Richmond, No. 16-cr-197-pp, at 3 (E.D. Wis. May 18, 2018). This was 

still not enough to raise even a reasonable suspicion that Richmond was committing even a minor crime. He was not running away from the squad car, cf. Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 

119 (2000), and no one has pointed to any Milwaukee or Wisconsin rule requiring people to walk only on the sidewalk. 

Moreover, as I explain in more detail below, the majority’s 

statement that Richmond “changed direction” upon seeing 

the officers goes beyond the findings of either the magistrate 

judge or the district judge; it is at best the government’s version of the events. 

As the officers parked their squad car and got out, Richmond walked up the steps to the porch, opened the screen 

door, and put a dark object on the door-frame between the 

screen door and the principal front door, which was closed. 

The officers could not identify the object that Richmond had 
26 No. 18-1559

put down, even though they suspected that it might be a gun. 

Richmond closed the screen door and headed down the stairs 

toward the officers. Officer Milone walked around him toward the door, while Officer Boyack identified the two as Milwaukee police. Milone then opened the screen door, saw a 

black, semi-automatic handgun, and seized it. Boyack asked 

Richmond if he was a felon, and Richmond admitted that he 

was. The officers promptly arrested Richmond and placed 

him into custody. Ultimately, he was convicted on a federal 

charge of illegal possession of a gun as an ex-felon, 18 U.S.C. 

§ 922(g), upon a conditional plea of guilty. Everyone agrees 

that the only issue in the case is whether Richmond’s motion 

to suppress the gun should have been granted. 

II

There are only two ways in which one might seek to justify 

the officers’ act of opening the screen door and seizing the 

gun: first, Richmond might have consented to their entry; or 

second, the police might have had the right to enter without 

consent, either because they had a warrant, or because one of 

the exceptions to the warrant requirement applies. No one argues that Richmond consented to Milone’s act of opening his

screen door. I accept, however, and Richmond concedes, that 

the conversation that took place on the porch before Milone

opened the door was consensual. 

That takes me directly to the Fourth Amendment analysis 

of the officers’ actions. I first explain why they violated the 

rule of Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1 (2013), and I then discuss

why the Terry rule cannot save this search and seizure. 
No. 18-1559 27

A

In Jardines, the Supreme Court considered the question 

“whether using a drug-sniffing dog on a homeowner’s porch 

to investigate the contents of the home is a ‘search’ within the 

meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at 3. There, the police 

officer had allowed the dog to go up to the base of the front 

door of the house; the dog alerted to the presence of drugs (in 

that case, marijuana); and the detective then obtained a warrant to search the house based on the dog’s alert. 

The Court began its analysis by emphasizing that the 

Fourth Amendment has always protected against physical intrusions of the home. Id. at 5. It then summarized its holding 

as follows:

That principle renders this case a straightforward one. 

The officers were gathering information in an area belonging to Jardines and immediately surrounding his 

house—in the curtilage of the house, which we have 

held enjoys protection as part of the home itself. And 

they gathered that information by physically entering 

and occupying the area to engage in conduct not explicitly or implicitly permitted by the homeowner.

Id. at 5–6. The home, the Court continued, “is first among 

equals” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 6. And 

that does not mean only the physical structure of the building. 

The Court went out of its way to reaffirm that the curtilage—

that is, “the area immediately surrounding and associated 

with the home”—is also part of the home itself under the 

Fourth Amendment. Id. (cleaned up). The front porch, it concluded, is “the classic exemplar” of a space that falls within 

the curtilage. Id. at 7. 
28 No. 18-1559

The Court then rejected the possibility that the dog’s presence on the porch fell within the license that the home’s occupants are presumed to grant for “solicitors, hawkers, and peddlers of all kinds,” id. at 8, with this comment:

[I]ntroducing a trained police dog to explore the area 

around the home in hopes of discovering incriminating 

evidence is something else. There is no customary invitation to do that.

Id. at 9. If an officer’s actions fall outside the scope of the license that a reasonable officer can presume—if, in other 

words, the officer takes actions beyond those that a homeowner has authorized for all visitors—Jardines holds that it is 

immaterial that the officer might be lawfully present while 

conducting those unauthorized actions. And although the 

subjective intent of the officer is irrelevant to the legality of his

actions, see, e.g., Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 736 (2011), 

Jardines explained that this means only that “a stop or search 

that is objectively reasonable is not vitiated by the fact that the 

officer’s real reason for making the stop or search has nothing 

to do with the validating reason.” 569 U.S. at 10.

The Court returned to this theme in Collins v. Virginia, 138 

S. Ct. 1663 (2018), in which it considered “whether the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment permits a police 

officer, uninvited and without a warrant, to enter the curtilage 

of a home in order to search a vehicle parked therein.” Id. at 

1668. No, was the Court’s clear answer. In that case, the police 

believed that a motorcycle parked in defendant Collins’s 

driveway was stolen. One officer went to the house, walked 

up the driveway to the motorcycle, lifted up a tarp that was 

covering it, recorded the identifying information, and confirmed that it was indeed stolen. 
No. 18-1559 29

In light of Jardines, there was no way in which that search 

could be justified as a warrantless search of the home or its 

curtilage. Instead, the state tried to shoehorn the search into 

the so-called automobile exception to the warrant requirement—an exception that developed because of the inherent 

mobility of the vehicle. The Court rejected that effort, explaining that “the scope of the automobile exception extends no 

further than the automobile itself. ... Nothing in our case law, 

however, suggests that the automobile exception gives an officer the right to enter a home or its curtilage to access a vehicle without a warrant.” Id. at 1671. It also reconfirmed, in 

words that this panel should be respecting, that it “already 

has declined to expand the scope of other exceptions to the 

warrant requirement to permit warrantless entry into the 

home.” Id. at 1672. It went on to list examples of its commitment to the warrant requirement, including the plain-view 

doctrine, which requires that “the officer have a lawful right 

of access to the object itself,” id., and, “absent another exception such as exigent circumstances, officers may not enter a 

home to make an arrest without a warrant, even when they have 

probable cause.” Id. (emphasis added). 

Here, the majority accepts that the officers lacked probable 

cause to search the home (or, importantly, its curtilage). Given 

that deficit, and the uncontested fact that none of the exceptions to the warrant requirement applies here, Officer Milone’s act of opening the screen door and looking behind it—

which easily qualifies as an intrusion into at least the curtilage, and probably also the home—was forbidden. That act

cannot be saved by the implicit license to approach the door, 

any more than that license saved the dog-sniff in Jardines. The 

majority observes that “Boyack and Milone were permitted to 

enter onto the porch without his consent” and that “he 
30 No. 18-1559

consented to the officers’ presence on the porch.” Ante at 9 n.2. 

Fine, but unhelpful. The critical fact is that the officers did 

more than they were invited or implicitly permitted to do 

when they opened and looked behind the screen door: there 

was no “invitation to do that.” Jardines, 569 U.S. at 9. Likewise, 

it would make no difference if (counterfactually) “Boyack and 

Milone had articulated objectively reasonable grounds [that 

is, something grounded in ascertainable facts] to suspect 

Richmond was engaged in criminal activity that justified their 

entry onto the porch.” Ante at 10 (emphasis added). They did 

not need reasonable suspicion to walk up to the porch and 

talk with Richmond. But they needed more than reasonable 

suspicion to open the door and thereby conduct a search of 

the home’s curtilage. And that they lacked.

The majority also asserts that “at the moment of the search 

the officers had no indication Richmond had any Fourth 

Amendment interest in the home.” Ante at 15. Putting aside 

the fact that the government never argued this issue, the officers’ subjective belief about Richmond’s own connection to the 

property (or lack thereof) is entirely irrelevant to the legality 

of the search or to the availability of the suppression remedy. 

If it had been another person’s home, the government would 

have so argued, and Richmond would not have been able to 

demonstrate the necessary interest for a Fourth Amendment 

claim. Since it was Richmond’s home, the government reasonably refrained from any such challenge, thereby forfeiting any 

argument it might have made. Had the government snooped 

behind the screen door of another person’s house without a 

warrant or other legal basis for its action, we might right now 

be facing a case in which that other person’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated. 
No. 18-1559 31

For purposes of the suppression remedy, the operative inquiry is whether the person seeking suppression in fact possesses enough of a connection to the home to trigger the protections of the Fourth Amendment. If the search of the curtilage had turned up something belonging to another resident

of the home, such as illegal drugs or child pornography, that

other resident would be entitled to contest that search and

seek to suppress the evidence. That would be so even though 

the police had never given any thought to the possibility of 

another resident or her connection to the property. Here, 

Richmond does have a Fourth Amendment interest in the 

home, giving him the necessary interest to contest the search 

and the right to seek suppression of illegally collected evidence. Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 134 (1978). 

The government might point to United States v. Santana, 

427 U.S. 38 (1976), as support for its position, but nothing in 

that case is in tension with the later decisions in Jardines and 

Collins. The only common element is the fact that a person’s 

front porch featured in the facts. Otherwise, everything that 

is missing here was present there. First, the district court 

found, and the Supreme Court confirmed, that the police had 

“strong probable cause” that defendant Santana had just participated in an illegal sale of narcotics. Id. at 41–42. Second, it 

found that Santana herself was in a public place as she stood 

on the threshold of her dwelling, and so, given the existence 

of probable cause, the police were entitled to arrest her there 

under the authority of United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411 

(1976). Finally, even though she briefly retreated into the 

house, the Court held that the police were entitled to follow 

her, because the requirements for “hot pursuit” were satisfied. Santana, 417 U.S. at 42–43. In Richmond’s case, there was 
32 No. 18-1559

neither probable cause nor hot pursuit—the two crucial features supporting the result in Santana.

I conclude, therefore, that a straightforward application of 

Jardines and Collins requires us here to find that the police violated the Fourth Amendment when they opened the screen 

door, thereby entering and searching the curtilage of Richmond’s home in a manner that exceeded the boundaries of 

any express or implied license. That violation continued when 

they seized the gun. Because neither a warrant nor probable 

cause (nor any other exception) protected that entry and seizure, the gun should have been suppressed.

B

Interestingly, my colleagues recognize that there was no 

probable cause for the search, and that it was the search of a 

home. In order to salvage Richmond’s conviction, they resort 

to the Terry line of cases to justify their decision. As I now explain, however, they have stretched Terry beyond anything 

the Supreme Court has ever endorsed.

The first question for Terry purposes is when, if ever, did 

the police develop a reasonable suspicion that Richmond was 

violating the law? We can rule out several points. First, as I 

indicated earlier, at the moment when Richmond was walking along the street in a high-crime neighborhood with a 

bulge in his front pocket, the police had no support for a reasonable suspicion of any misconduct. Plenty of people are out 

and about around midnight, after spending an evening with 

friends, seeing a movie or live show, or working a late shift. 

Unfortunately, plenty of people also live in neighborhoods 

with a significant crime problem. They are not confined to 

quarters, however, and so they are just as entitled to walk 
No. 18-1559 33

around in the evening as anyone else. But, the majority 

stresses, Richmond had a bulge in his pocket, and the officers, 

based on their experience, believed that this bulge was a gun. 

That was, however, at most a guess. It could just as easily have 

been a couple of beer cans, or a late-night snack, or a book. 

Reasonable suspicion requires more than educated speculation. And critically, as of that time Richmond had done nothing that a person with a valid firearms license might also have 

done.

The next suspicious event to which the majority points is 

the fact that Richmond accelerated his pace when he realized 

that the police were interested in him. But nothing in the record supports a finding that he turned tail and ran, as was the 

case in Wardlow. In fact, Officer Boyack acknowledged that 

Richmond “was not running or sprinting.” The majority 

adopts the government’s assertion that Richmond “changed 

direction” upon seeing the officers, ante at 2, but that purported fact appears nowhere in the district court’s opinion nor 

in the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation. It is 

therefore improper for this court to assume that the officers 

had an objective basis to suspect a violation of the law because 

they saw Richmond make an “unusual change of course,” id.,

at least without making clear that we are finding facts for the 

first time. Yet the majority bases its finding of reasonable suspicion at least partly on this fact. Ante at 8. 

Even if we were entitled to consider whether Richmond 

changed direction, the record support for that proposition is 

quite weak. There is testimony from one of the officers indicating that Richmond “did change his direction,” but the officer elaborated as follows: “First he was walking north. He 

then went on a – not a hard right but it would be to his right 
34 No. 18-1559

on an angle across the grass which would be to his east.” Dkt. 

75 at 9-10. It is doubtful whether a person’s choice to cut 

across the grass to reach a home located along his preexisting 

route—as many people might do at the conclusion of a walk—

is best described as a “change of direction.” That seems more 

like a phrase that signals at least a 90 degree turn, if not a 180. 

It is hardly an “unusual change of course,” ante at 2, for pedestrians to take this type of shortcut. 

A person who keeps on going in the general direction in 

which he was traveling but accelerates his pace upon making 

eye contact with a police officer—which is the most that this 

record establishes—has not done enough to give rise to reasonable suspicion. It is not hard to imagine that this person 

might want to avoid a late-night chat with the police, especially given the notoriously fraught state of community-police 

relationships in many cities. Gallup reported a few years ago 

that confidence in the police is at its lowest level in 22 years. 

See Jeffrey M. Jones, “In U.S., Confidence in Police Lowest in 

22 Years,” Gallup News, at https://news.gallup.com/

poll/183704/confidence-police-lowest-years.aspx. A chart in 

that article shows that this problem is especially severe 

among African-Americans, only 30% of whom reported in 

2014–15 that they had either “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of 

confidence in the police. 

This leaves Richmond’s act of placing the object behind the 

screen door when he reached the porch. That one act does not 

suffice to support reasonable suspicion, in my view, even taking into account the fact that a person with a valid firearm license presumably would not mind being found with the 

weapon. As of this time, the police had nothing but a “hunch” 

that the item was a gun, rather than a package that Richmond 
No. 18-1559 35

wanted to tuck away before his encounter. (If this were a drug 

case, would the police have insisted that they suspected that 

Richmond was carrying a brick of cocaine?) A person in a 

high-crime neighborhood is very likely aware that the police 

have been known to make mistakes about objects, with tragic 

results. The act of stashing the unknown package thus does 

not salvage an otherwise inadequate case for reasonable suspicion. I will not dignify with any response the government’s

effort to squeeze reasonable suspicion out of the fact that 

Richmond was “a large, muscular man who stood unrestrained within a couple strides from where he concealed” 

what hindsight proved to be a gun. The majority lists this fact 

as evidence substantiating the officers’ concern for their 

safety. Does this mean that large, physically fit men can be 

searched at will, in the name of officer safety? I hope not. Yet

the government cites Richmond’s appearance as one of “at 

least five articulable facts [that] support[ed] their suspicion.” It 

does not. 

And even if this thin set of facts were enough to justify a 

working assumption that Richmond had a gun, so what? Generally speaking, to justify an investigatory stop, the police 

must have “a particularized and objective basis for suspecting 

the particular person stopped of criminal activity.” Navarette 

v. California, 572 U.S. 393, 396 (2014), citing United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417–18 (1981). Mere possession of a firearm 

in a high-crime area—assuming for a moment that the police 

had an adequate basis for even this conclusion—is not good 

enough. See United States v. Watson, 900 F.3d 892, 896–97 (7th 

Cir. 2018). As we pointed out in Watson, “[p]eople who live in 

rough neighborhoods may want and, in many situations, may 

carry guns for protection. They should not be subject to more 
36 No. 18-1559

intrusive police practices than are those from wealthy neighborhoods.” Id. at 897. 

The police did not have the necessary reasonable suspicion to frisk Richmond, had they accosted him before he 

reached his front door, and they made no effort to do so. Even 

if they did, they knew that he was no longer carrying the mystery package; for officer safety, they could have escorted him 

to the squad car, far from the package, and gone about their 

business. I am aware of no authority that endorses the conduct of a Terry-like “frisk” not of a person, but of a home or 

its curtilage. Any kind of search of the home or curtilage on 

less than probable cause (supported by a warrant, normally),

or without one of the recognized exceptions such as hot pursuit, is forbidden by binding Supreme Court precedent, notably Jardines and Collins. 

I would therefore reverse the district court’s decision to 

deny Richmond’s motion to suppress and return this case to 

that court for further proceedings. I thus dissent from the majority’s decision.