J.A30034/15

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

: PENNSYLVANIA

:

v. :

:

JAMES HUNTER, :

:

Appellant :

: No. 3203 EDA 2014

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence November 13, 2014

In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County

Criminal Division No(s): CP-51-CR-0001447-2014

BEFORE: MUNDY, JENKINS, and FITZGERALD,*JJ.

MEMORANDUM BY FITZGERALD, J.: FILED JANUARY 12, 2016

Appellant, James Hunter, appeals from the judgment of sentence 

entered in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas following his 

bench conviction of firearms offenses. Appellant challenges the trial court’s 

denial of his suppression motion, arguing the court erred in finding an 

anonymous tip provided the police officer reasonable suspicion to conduct an 

investigative detention. We affirm.

“On January 16, 2014 at 2:50 a.m., Philadelphia Police Officer Donyell 

Thomas received a radio call directing him to the 4600 block of North 

Palethorpe Street in Philadelphia for a burglary in progress.” Trial Ct. Op., 

1/23/15, at 2. The officer was in uniform in a police vehicle and was 

 

*

Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.
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working alone. N.T. Suppression H’rg, 6/27/14, at 16. The police dispatch 

informed Officer Thomas that “a neighbor that lives on that particular block 

said he saw someone . . . force their way or get into the rear of a property 

on 4600.” Id. at 13. The officer described this area as a “high crime area” 

with shootings and “a lot of drug traffic.” Id. at 12. Officer Thomas did not 

know who called police or from which address the tip was given. Id. at 15.

The call described the suspect as an African-American 

male wearing a black jacket, with a black bookbag. The 

suspect was reportedly heading northbound on Palethorpe 

towards Wyoming Avenue. Officer Thomas responded to 

Palethorpe, then traveled northbound to Wyoming Avenue. 

He then turned onto the 4800 block of North 2nd Street, 

continuing northbound, and observed Appellant matching 

the description of the suspect. Appellant was walking 

northbound, and was the only person Officer Thomas saw 

in the area.

Officer Thomas [stopped approximately two feet from 

Appellant, disembarked from his vehicle,1] approached 

Appellant and asked him where he was going. Appellant 

responded that he was going to his bus. Officer Thomas 

then asked Appellant to stop.

Trial Ct. Op. at 2 (citing N.T. at 5-8).

As Appellant’s argument emphasizes the sequence of the ensuing 

events,2 we review Officer Thomas’ testimony in detail. On direct 

examination, Officer Thomas first stated that after stopping Appellant, he 

“asked him, Are you coming from Palethorpe Street?,” Appellant said yes, 

 

1 N.T. at 9. Furthermore, Officer Thomas testified there were street lights 

and he could see his surroundings. Id. at 8.

2 See Appellant’s Brief at 19 n.4.
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and the officer “secured him for officer’s safety and . . . asked him if he had 

any weapons on his person.” N.T. at 8. On the next page of testimony, the 

Commonwealth asked Officer Thomas specifically when he asked Appellant if 

he was coming from Palethorpe Street, and the officer replied he could not 

recall the sequence of events. Id. at 9.

During the pat-down, Officer Thomas recovered from inside Appellant’s 

jacket a “25-caliber handgun . . . loaded with six live rounds.” Id. at 10. 

The officer initially testified that after he recovered the gun, he placed 

Appellant in custody inside his vehicle. Id. at 11. Inside Appellant’s book 

bag, the officer found gloves, duct tape, plastic gloves, a screwdriver, a 

kitchen knife, and a knit hat. Id. When Appellant was in the vehicle, he 

said he “was going over to Palethorpe Street to engage in a fight[ with] 

some guys he knew that had lived on that block because a day prior[,] they 

beat him up. They roamed him as he said, quote, unquote.” Id.

On cross-examination, Appellant confronted Officer Thomas with his 

preliminary hearing testimony, in which the officer stated he saw Appellant, 

stopped him, and then “asked him where he was coming from.” Id. at 18. 

Appellant also showed the officer his “73-483” written report, which stated 

that after the officer asked Appellant “where he was coming from, [the 

officer] asked him to step into [his] patrol vehicle.” Id. Officer Thomas 

agreed that “at that point,” Appellant was not free to leave, and furthermore 

that at that point, he asked Appellant if he had any weapons. Id. at 19. On 
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recross-examination, redirect examination, and further recross-examination, 

Officer Thomas agreed to this chronology: he stopped Appellant, handcuffed 

him, placed him in the police vehicle, asked “if he had any weapon on him,” 

and then recovered the gun from his jacket. Id. at 21-23.

Appellant was charged with firearms offenses. He filed a suppression 

motion, and the above-cited hearing was held on June 27, 2014. The court 

announced its ruling to deny the motion at the hearing. The case proceeded 

to a bench trial on September 5, 2014, at which the court found Appellant 

guilty of persons not to possess a firearm, firearms not to be carried without 

a license, and carrying firearms on public streets in Philadelphia.3 On 

November 13, 2014, the court imposed an aggregate sentence of four to ten 

years’ imprisonment and three years’ probation. Appellant did not file a 

post-sentence motion, but took this timely appeal.4

Appellant raises one claim before this Court: that the trial court erred 

in finding Officer Thomas had reasonable suspicion to conduct an 

investigative detention.5 He presents three arguments in support, which we 

summarize as follows. First, the anonymous tip gave only a “vague, generic, 

 

3 18 Pa.C.S. §§ 6105(a)(1), 6106(a)(1), 6108.

4 The trial court did not direct Appellant to file a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement 

of errors complained of on appeal.

5 Appellant concedes that Officer Thomas’ approach and initial question—as 

to where Appellant was going—were legal. See Appellant’s Brief at 12, 20 

(“On this point, the suppression court’s conclusion should be upheld.”).
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incomplete description” of the suspect, and did not describe the suspect’s 

age, height, weight, hairstyle, facial hair, gait, or any other physical trait. 

Appellant’s Brief at 20, 40. Thus, the tip failed to provide “a particularized 

and objective basis” required for an investigatory detention. Id. at 21. The 

mere fact that the tipster’s “description and location of” a suspect are 

ultimately accurate is not sufficient reliability. Id. at 26. Second, the 

anonymous “tipster’s credibility and basis of knowledge could not be 

assessed.” Id. at 20. “[T]here was no evidence that the tip originated in a 

911 call or was otherwise traceable.[ ]” Id. at 40. “The suppression court 

could not be certain that” Officer Thomas did not “invent[ ]” the police flash 

report, the tip could have been given by a “prankster or a person with a 

grudge,” and “[t]he tipster could have been a neighbor who mistakenly 

believed a man was trying to break into a house that was actually his own.[ 

]

” Id. at 39, 41-42. Third, “Officer Thomas failed entirely to corroborate 

any of the tip’s allegations” “through further investigation, such as [his] own 

observations of and encounters with the suspect that do not rise to the level 

of a seizure.” Id. at 20, 22-23. Appellant maintains, “Except in the most 

extraordinary circumstances, an anonymous tip alone cannot establish the 

reasonable suspicion [required for] an investigative stop.” Id. at 22, 29 

(citing, inter alia, Navarette v. California, 134 S. Ct. 1683 (2014); 

Commonwealth v. Goodwin, 750 A.2d 795 (Pa. 2000); Commonwealth 

v. Hawkins, 692 A.2d 1068 (Pa. 1997)). We find no relief is due.
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This Court has stated:

“Our review of a suppression ruling is limited to 

determining whether the record as a whole supports the 

suppression court’s factual findings and whether the legal 

conclusions drawn from such findings are free of error.” 

Our scope of review is limited: “we must consider only the 

evidence of the prosecution and so much of the evidence 

for the defense as remains uncontradicted when read in 

the context of the record as a whole.” “Where the record 

supports the findings of the suppression court, we are 

bound by those facts and may reverse only if the court 

erred in reaching its legal conclusions based upon the 

facts.”

[Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968),] sets the standard for 

the reasonableness of an investigative stop under the 

Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution [and] 

Art. I, § 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. 

Commonwealth v. Melendez, . . . 676 A.2d 226, 228-

229 (Pa. 1996).

Under Terry and Melendez, it is well established that a 

police officer may conduct a brief investigative stop of an 

individual, if the officer observes unusual conduct which 

leads him to reasonably conclude, in light of his 

experience, that criminal activity may be afoot. “An 

investigatory stop subjects a person to a stop and a period 

of detention, but does not involve such coercive conditions 

as to constitute the functional equivalent of an arrest. 

Such an investigatory stop is justified only if the detaining 

officer can point to specific and articulable facts which, in 

conjunction with rational inference derived from those 

facts, give rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal 

activity and therefore warrant the intrusion.” In 

ascertaining the existence of reasonable suspicion, we 

must look to the totality of the circumstances to determine 

whether the officer had reasonable suspicion that criminal 

activity was afoot. If so, the officer would then be justified 

in conducting an investigative stop of the defendant.

“Reasonable suspicion depends upon both the content 

of the information possessed by the police and its degree 

of reliability.” “To have reasonable suspicion, police 
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officers need not personally observe the illegal or 

suspicious conduct, but may rely upon the information of 

third parties, including ‘tips’ from citizens. Naturally, if a 

tip has a relatively low degree of reliability, more 

information will be required to establish the requisite 

quantum of suspicion than would be required if the tip 

were more reliable.”

In Commonwealth v. Jackson, . . . 698 A.2d 571 (Pa. 

1997), our Supreme Court examined at length the socalled “man with a gun” scenario: namely, an anonymous 

tip that a person at a particular place matching a particular 

description is carrying a gun. Our Supreme Court held 

that such an anonymous tip, without independent police 

corroboration producing reasonable suspicion of criminal 

activity, is insufficient to justify a stop and frisk. The Court 

reasoned as follows:

In [Hawkins,] the Philadelphia police responded 

to an anonymous telephone report that there was a 

man with a gun at the corner of Sydenham and York 

Streets. The suspect was described as a black male 

wearing a blue cap, black jeans and a gold or 

brownish coat. We held that such allegations, 

without more, did not constitute reasonable grounds 

for the police to suspect that the individual was 

armed and dangerous:

If the police respond to an anonymous call 

that a particular person at a specified location 

is engaged in criminal activity, and upon 

arriving at the location see a person matching 

the description but nothing more, they have no 

certain knowledge except that the caller 

accurately described someone at a particular 

location . . . . The fact that a suspect 

resembles the anonymous caller’s description 

does not corroborate allegations of criminal 

conduct, for anyone can describe a person who 

is standing in a particular location at the time 

of the anonymous call. Something more is 

needed to corroborate the caller’s allegations 

of criminal conduct.
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Hawkins, 692 A.2d at 1070. . . . 

[Jackson,] 698 A.2d at 574-575.

Commonwealth v. Wiley, 858 A.2d 1191, 1194-95 (Pa. Super. 2004) 

(some citations omitted).

In the 2014 United States Supreme Court decision of Navarette, a 

woman called 911 and reported the defendants’ “truck ‘ran the [caller] off 

the roadway.’” Navarette, 134 S. Ct. at 1689. The caller described the 

vehicle as “a silver Ford F-150 pickup” and provided the license plate 

number. Id. Two officers separately responded to the subsequent 

broadcast and stopped the defendants’ vehicle. Id. at 1687. “As the two 

officers approached the truck, they smelled marijuana. A search of the truck 

bed revealed 30 pounds of marijuana.” Id. The police arrested both the 

driver and the passenger. The defendants “moved to suppress the evidence, 

arguing that the traffic stop violated the Fourth Amendment because the 

officer lacked reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.” Id.

On appeal, the High Court affirmed the suppression court’s refusal to 

suppress the evidence, holding “the stop complied with the Fourth 

Amendment because, under the totality of the circumstances, the officer had 

reasonable suspicion that the driver was intoxicated.” Id. at 1686. The 

Court reiterated:

“[A]n anonymous tip alone seldom demonstrates the 

informant’s basis of knowledge or veracity.” That is 

because “ordinary citizens generally do not provide 

extensive recitations of the basis of their everyday 
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observations,” and an anonymous tipster’s veracity is “‘by 

hypothesis largely unknown, and unknowable.’” But under 

appropriate circumstances, an anonymous tip can 

demonstrate “sufficient indicia of reliability to provide 

reasonable suspicion to make [an] investigatory stop.”

Id. at 1687 (citations omitted).

The Court stated, “The initial question in this case is whether the 

[anonymous6] 911 call was sufficiently reliable to credit the allegation that 

[the defendants’] truck ‘ran the [caller] off the roadway.’” Id. at 1688. It 

then reasoned:

By reporting that she had been run off the road by a 

specific vehicle—a silver Ford F-150 pickup, license plate 

8D94925—the caller necessarily claimed eyewitness 

knowledge of the alleged dangerous driving. That basis of 

knowledge lends significant support to the tip’s reliability. . 

. . 

There is also reason to think that the 911 caller in this 

case was telling the truth. Police confirmed the truck’s 

location . . . roughly 19 highway miles south of the 

location reported in the 911 call . . . roughly 18 minutes 

after the 911 call[ ]. That timeline of events suggests that 

the caller reported the incident soon after she was run off 

the road. That sort of contemporaneous report has long 

been treated as especially reliable.

Id. at 1689.

In the case sub judice, the trial court noted Appellant’s reliance on 

 

6 The caller had “identified herself by name in the 911 call recording.” 

Navarette, 134 S. Ct. at 1687 n.1. However, “the prosecution did not 

introduce the recording into evidence,” and thus both the prosecution “and 

the lower courts” treated her tip as anonymous. Id.
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Jackson and Hawkins7and distinguished those cases:

. . . In both of these cases, uncorroborated reports of 

individuals with weapons were not sufficient to establish 

reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, and therefore did 

not justify a search.

Unlike the cases cited by Appellant, the instant case 

involved a report of burglary in progress. While mere 

possession of a firearm may not necessarily involve illegal 

activity, burglary is certainly criminal. The report of a 

burglary necessarily gives police a reasonable suspicion 

that criminal activity is afoot and the individual described 

is involved. Moreover, Officer Thomas had this report of 

criminal activity, a description of the suspect, and the 

location and movements of the suspect. This is more 

information than provided in Hawkins and Jackson, 

giving rise to a reasonable suspicion that Appellant was 

involved in criminal activity.

Trial Ct. Op. at 5.

The trial court also noted Appellant’s reliance on Navarette and 

reasoned:

. . . Appellant argued that there was no indicia of 

reliability in the initial report of a burglary. The record, 

however, suggests otherwise. Although Navarette

concerned a vehicle stop as opposed to a pedestrian stop, 

the requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion, 

and the factors that contribute to reasonable suspicion are 

the same. Officer Thomas responded to a radio call which 

provided very specific information, i.e., the location and 

description of the suspect and crime. Appellant was then 

located mere blocks from the reported burglary, within a 

few minutes of the report. This establishes 

contemporaneity, a factor that supported the credibility of 

the call in Navarette. Appellant matched the description 

of the suspect from the report, and confirmed that he had 

 

7 Appellant likewise relies on Jackson and Hawkins on appeal. Appellant’s 

Brief at 29-31.
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come from Palethorpe Street, lending further credibility. 

All of these factors—the totality of the circumstances—

provided Officer Thomas with reasonable suspicion to 

investigate, and ultimately probable cause to arrest 

Appellant.

Id. at 6. We agree with the trial court’s reasoning.

We agree with the trial court’s emphasis that the tip reported a 

burglary in progress, and thus that this was merely not a “‘man with a gun’ 

scenario: namely, an anonymous tip that a person at a particular place 

matching a particular description is carrying a gun.” See Wiley, 858 A.2d 

at 1194 (quoting Jackson, 698 A.2d at 574-75). We further agree with the 

trial court’s comparison of Officer Thomas’ observation of Appellant “mere 

blocks” from Palethorpe Street “within a few minutes of the report” to the 

Navarette’s officers’ observation of the defendants’ truck on the highway 

approximately “highway miles south of the location reported in the 911 call . 

. . roughly 18 minutes after the 911 call[ ].” See Navarette, 134 S. Ct. at 

1689; Trial Ct. Op. at 6.

Furthermore, we reject Appellant’s argument that Officer Thomas 

failed to investigate or corroborate the anonymous tip. The officer testified 

the police radio information said the suspect was a black male wearing a 

black jacket and black book bag, and “was seen walking on Palethorpe going 

towards Wyoming.” N.T. at 6. The officer responded to “4600 Palethorpe 

Street” and then Wyoming Street, but did not see anyone. Id. at 7. Officer 

Thomas then saw Appellant, who matched the description, on the 4800 block 
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of North Second Street. Id. As stated above, Appellant concedes the 

officer’s initial approach of Appellant was legal. Appellant’s Brief at 20. The 

officer then asked Appellant if he was coming from Palethorpe Street, and 

Appellant responded “Yes.” N.T. at 8. We agree with the trial court that 

these facts provided Officer Thomas with the reasonable suspicion to 

conduct an investigative detention of Appellant. See Wiley, 858 A.2d at 

1194-95. Accordingly, we do not disturb the trial court’s suppression ruling 

and affirm Appellant’s judgment of sentence.

Judgment of sentence affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 1/12/2016