### T E X A S C O U R T O F A P P E A L S , T H I R D D I S T R I C T , A T A U S T I N

NO. 03-18-00225- CR

Jim m y Lee P roa, Appellant

v. The State of Texas, App ellee

F ROM TH E DISTRI CT COURT O F H AY S CO UNTY, 22ND J UDICIAL DI STRICT NO. CR-17 -09 64, H ONO RAB LE R. B RUCE B OY ER, JUDGE P RESIDING

M E M O R A N D U M O P I N I O N

After the t rial court denied his motion to suppress evidenc e, a jury found appellant J immy L ee Proa g uilty of unlawfu l p ossession of a firea rm by a felon, a third-deg ree felony , possession of a controlled substance, coca ine, in an amount of four g rams or more but less than 200 g rams, a second- deg ree felony , and possession of a controlled substance, methamphetamine, in an amount of four g rams or more but less than 200 grams, a se cond-de g ree felony . The State a lso alleg ed two enhanc eme n t p ar agraphs, which wer e found true. See Tex. Penal Code § 12.42(d). The trial court assessed punishment at 20 y ear s’ imprisonment for the count of unlawful possession of a firea rm and 30 y ear s’ imprisonment fo r ea ch count of possession of a controlled substance and order ed that the sentenc es run concur rently

. In his sole a

ppellate issue, Proa contends that the trial co u rt err ed in denying his motion to suppress. We will aff irm the trial court’s judgme nts of convic tion.BACK GR OUND At the hear ing on Proa’s motion to suppress the results of a vehicle sear ch in which office rs found a fi re ar m and controlled substances, the State prese nted two rec orded 911 calls. I n one rec ording , the caller repor ted hear ing a g unshot in downtown San Marc os. In t h e second

rec ording , a caller repor

ted that a Hispanic male discharg ed a handgun from a “new er” white, fourdoor C h ev y S i l v er ad o that was clea n, like it had just been waxed. The caller also identified the truck’s location and direc tion of trave l. In the same rec ording , another caller descr ibed the incident, including the suspect’s ve hicle and loc ation. Both of the callers i n the s econd rec ording provided their name s to the 911 dispatcher , and one a lso provided her telephone numbe r. Two police office rs then testified at the hear ing. T he first office r testified that the 911 dispatcher s descr ibed the suspect vehicle to he r as “ a newe r model white Chevy pickup truck, Silverado, four- door. They descr ibed it as clea n, like it had been waxed.” The office r char acte rized this descr iption as “p re t t y specific .” She further testified that she spotted a truck matching the descr iption “roug hly about a mile” from “whe re the call was.” Ac cording to the office r, the truc k she spotted was “the only white newly waxed truck [she] saw in the are a” during her sear ch, which lasted about 25 minutes.

The second police offi ce r t es tified that the alleg ed discharg e of a firea rm in a

crow ded place is “extremely dang erous” and require s “lots of office rs to r espond to assist with it.” Acc ording to the office r, he stopped a truck matching the caller s’ descr iption less than 30 minutes afte r t he reported firear

m discharg e. I n addition, the office r i dentified P roa in court as the t ruck’ s driver and descr ibed the sea rch of the vehicle. The office r testified on cross-e x amination that he

2would estimate the d i s t an ce from the alleg ed shooting to wher e he stopped Proa’s truck as about

two miles, but he also later ag ree d that it would not “surpr ise” him if it wer e three and a half miles.

At the conclusion of the hear ing, the trial court denied Proa’s motion to suppress. Proa wa s later c onvicted and se ntence d, and this appea l followed.

AP P LICABLE LAW AND STANDARD OF REVIEW I n his sole appellate issue, Proa contends that the tri al court err ed in denying his motion to suppress beca

use office rs violated his constitutional rig hts by stopping his vehicle without

rea sonable suspicion. “Rea sonable suspicion to d et ain a person exis ts when a police office r has specific , articula

ble fac ts that, when combined with rational infere nces from those fac ts, would lead him to rea sonably conclude that the person detained is, has been, or soon will be eng ag ed in criminal activity .” Ramirez-Tamayo v. State , 537 S.W .3d 29, 36 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017) (interna l quotation marks omi tted). At a suppressi o n h ear ing, the State need not prove that the defendant commit ted

a crime prior to the stop. See Martinez v. State , 348 S.W .3d 919, 923 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011); State

v. Salas , No. 03-16-00325- CR, 2018 WL 2437223, at *4 (Tex. App.—Austin May 31, 2018, no pet.) (mem. op., not desig nated for publication). Rather, the rea sonable-suspicion standard “re quires only

some minimal level of objective justification for the stop.” Salas , 2018 WL 2437223, at *4 (interna l quotation ma

rks omitted) (quoting Hamal v. State , 390 S.W .3d 302, 306 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012)). We revie w a trial court’s rulin g on a motion to suppress for an abuse of discretion. See State v. Cortez , 543 S.W .3d 198, 203 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018); Hernande z v. State , No. 03-17-00793- CR, 2018 WL 3371390, at *1 (Tex. App.—Austin J uly 11, 2018, no pet.) (mem. op., not desig nated for publication). We view t h e re co rd in the “lig ht most favor able to the trial 3court’s conclusion and reve rse the ju d gm en t only if it is outside the zone of rea sonable

d is a gr e e me nt. ” S

ta te v . D ix o n , 2 0 6 S. W. 3 d 5 8 7 , 5 9 0 ( T e x. Crim

. A p p . 2 0 0 6 )

. F u

r th e r mo r e , a p p e ll a te courts “use a bifurca

ted standard of revie w to evaluate whether the totality of circ umstances is

s u ff i cient to support an office r’s rea sonable suspicion of criminal activity .” Cortez , 543 S.W

. 3 d at 203. Courts apply this bifurca ted standard by “g iving almost total defe renc e to the historical fac ts found by the trial court and analy zing de novo the t ri al co u rt ’s appli cation of the law.” State v. Cuong Phu Le , 463 S.W .3d 872, 876 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015). Appellate cou rt s must infer the

nece ssary fac tual finding s that support the trial court’s ruling when, as here , the trial court does not make expli cit finding s of fac t. State v. Garcia-Cantu , 253 S.W .3d 236, 241 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008).

DISCUSSIO N On appea l, Proa conce des t h at “Tex as courts have often held that a citizeninformant’s tip can be used to establish rea sonable suspicion to make a traff ic stop.” He argues, howeve r, that the descr iptions of the vehicle that the 911 caller s supplied here wer e t o o vague to support rea sonable suspicion. Proa notes that the caller s “did not g ive the police a license plate or partial number, any identifying marks s uch as a bumper sticker or point out [P roa’ s] vehicle prior to the stop.” Proa also introduced evidenc e at the suppression hear ing indicating that 1,465 white, four- door Chevy pickups wer e reg istered in Hay s County

. In addition, Proa arg ues that the office rs lacke d rea sonable suspicion to detain him beca use some 30 minutes e lapsed betwee n the 911 calls and the tra ffic stop.

Howeve r, the rec ord indicates that the ca llers informed the police that the shot wa s fired from a white, four- door Chevy Silverado that was a newe r model and was clea n, like it had just 4been waxed. They also provided the police with the truck’s location. Moreove r, one of the office rs

testified that Proa’s truc k was “ the only white newly

waxed truck” that she saw during her se arc h. Acc ording to the testimony , office rs stopped Proa betwee n one and three and a half miles from the site of the alleg ed fire arm discha rg e. Given that the office rs’ sear ch was so limit ed in space and time, the details provided by the caller s wer e sufficie ntly specific to exclude the vast majority of vehicles that t h e o ffice rs encounte red. Additionally , the office rs rec eived the details throug h unsolicited calls from conce rned citizens who provided their identities to the police. See State v. Nelson , 228 S.W .3d 899, 903 (Tex. App.—Austin 2007, no pet.) (“ Unsolicited information re g arding a crime in prog ress provide d by a citizen who has no re lationship with the police and who makes herse lf acc ountable by providing

co n t act information is inhere ntly reliable .”); see also Sawyer v. State , No. 03-07-00450 -C R , 2009 WL 722256, at *4 (Tex. App.—Austin Mar. 19, 2009, no pet.) (mem. op., not de signa ted for publication) (noting that vehicle descr iption provided by citizen informant need not include license p la te n u mb e r to b e r e li a

b le )

. F u r th e r , w e a r e n o t p e r s u a d e d b y th e a

r g u me nt th a t th e 2 0 o r 3 0 mi n

ute s that elapse d betwee n the 911 calls and the traff ic stop made the stop unrea sonable. See Johnson v. State , 444 S.W .3d 209, 214 (Tex. App.—Houston [14t h Dist.] 2014, pet. ref ’d) (holding office r had

rea sonable suspicion to detain the de fenda nt when the of

fice r “wa s responding to a 30-minute-old 911 call”) ; Evans v. State , 799 S.W .2d 412, 414 (Tex

. Ap p .—Corpus Christi 1990, no pet.) (conc luding that rea sonable suspicion did not “eva porate [] ” during 45 minutes betwee n phone call and sea rch, e specia lly

beca use off icer s appre hended suspe ct within “close pr ox imity ”). Viewing the totality of the circ umstances in the rec ord befor e us in t he light most favor able to the trial court’s ruling , including the seriou s n es s of the offe nse the office rs wer e 5investigating, the specific ity of the caller s’ descr iptions , an d t he proxi mity in time and space of

the traff ic stop to the alleg ed offe nse, we conclu d e t h at the State prese nted at the least “some minimal level of objective justification for the stop,” Salas , 2018 WL 2437223, at *4 (interna l quotation marks omitted), and that the trial court did not err in concluding the office rs had rea sonable suspicion to stop Proa ’s vehicle. Be cause the trial court’s denial of Proa’s motion to suppress was not “outside the zone of rea sonable disag ree ment,” Dixon , 206 S.W .3d at 590, we cannot conclude that the trial court abused its discretion in deny ing Proa’s motion to suppres s , an d we overr ule his sole appellate issue.

CONCLUSION

We affir m the trial court’ s judgme nts of conviction.

__________________________________________ Chari L . Kelly , J ustice Be fore Chief J ustice Rose, Jus tices Tria na and K elly Affir med Filed: Mar ch 5, 2019 Do Not Publish

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