UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA 

SOUTH BEND DIVISION 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

 v. 

D’SHAWN JEANES 

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Case No. 3:16-CR-070 JD 

ORDER

Defendant D’Shawn Jeanes is a felon who was found in possession of a firearm during a 

traffic stop. The stop was prompted by a 911 call in which the caller reported that a man in a car 

ahead of her was waving around a gun and yelling slurs. Officers stopped the car, which Mr. 

Jeanes was driving, and Mr. Jeanes consented to a search and admitted to possessing a firearm. 

After being charged with possessing a firearm as a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), 

Mr. Jeanes moved to suppress evidence on the ground that the traffic stop was unlawful. The 

magistrate held a hearing on the motion and prepared a report and recommendation. He 

concluded that the information from the 911 caller was sufficiently reliable and provided 

reasonable suspicion for the stop, so he recommended that the motion be denied. 

Mr. Jeanes has now filed brief objections to the report and recommendations. Pursuant to 

28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B), when a magistrate judge conducts an evidentiary hearing and submits 

proposed findings of fact and recommendations, “[a] judge of the court shall make a de novo 

determination of those portions of the report or specified proposed findings or recommendations 

to which objection is made. A judge of the court may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in 

part, the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate judge.” Id.

Mr. Jeanes begins by agreeing that the factual findings in the report and recommendation 

are accurate, so the Court adopts those findings. Mr. Jeanes objects only that the report and 

recommendation omitted that the dispatcher stated over the radio that the gun may have had been 
2 

thrown out of the car. As the government notes, however, the report and recommendation did 

include that fact. [DE 34 p. 3 n.3]. In addition, Mr. Jeanes has never made any argument as to 

how that fact should affect the disposition of his motion, so any argument on that basis is 

waived.1

Mr. Jeanes also briefly objects to the report and recommendation’s legal conclusions, 

arguing that the 911 call did not justify the stop. The Court disagrees, and adopts the magistrate 

judge’s thorough and well-reasoned analysis. “Officers may conduct an investigatory stop of a 

vehicle if articulable facts support a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot.” United 

States v. Drake, 456 F.3d 771, 774 (7th Cir. 2006). When a stop is based on an anonymous tip, 

this inquiry encompasses two questions: whether the information provided is sufficiently 

reliable, and if so, whether that information supports reasonable suspicion. Navarette v. 

California, 134 S. Ct. 1683, 1687 (2014). 

Mr. Jeanes argues that the 911 call here was not reliable, but the Court disagrees, as the 

call included many indicia of reliability. The caller had eyewitness knowledge of the incident she 

was reporting, reported the incident as it was happening, and used the 911 emergency system to 

report the information. Those same factors satisfied the Supreme Court in Navarette. 134 S. Ct. 

at 1689–90. In addition, though the caller declined to give her name, she gave a variety of other 

information about her identity, indicating that she was not withholding her name for an illicit 

purpose. As just noted, she placed her call to the 911 center, which recorded the call, and which 

presumably captured her phone number. She also told the dispatcher what kind of car she was 

driving and where she was located. She also stayed on the line for about three minutes, making 

 

1

 Moreover, it would seem that discarding a firearm out of a moving car in a populated area 

would provide even greater reason to stop the car to investigate criminal activity.
3 

herself available for further questions up until the time the stop occurred, at which time she hung 

up. The only information the caller declined to provide was her name, but the dispatcher did not 

even ask for that information until after the stop had already been commenced. Finally, the 

magistrate judge found that the caller’s tone and demeanor during the call further supported her 

credibility. Taken together, those factors provide sufficient indicia of reliability to justify the 

officers in relying on the information, and the Seventh Circuit has held on multiple previous 

occasions that similar tips were sufficiently reliable for these purposes. E.g., United States v. 

Hampton, 585 F.3d 1033, 1038–39 (7th Cir. 2009); United States v. Wooden, 551 F.3d 647 (7th 

Cir. 2008); United States v. Drake, 456 F.3d 771, 774–75 (7th Cir. 2006); United States v. 

Fields, 373 F. App’x 624 (7th Cir. 2010); see also United States v. Watson, No. 2:15-cr-79, 2016 

WL 4578152, at *4–6 (N.D. Ind. Sept. 2, 2016). 

Mr. Jeanes next argues that, even believing the information, it still did not provide 

reasonable suspicion to justify the stop, as merely possessing or waving a firearm is not a 

criminal offense. The Court disagrees. The caller stated that she saw a person waving a gun out 

of a moving vehicle and that the person was yelling “slurs and stuff.” This occurred in a 

populated area during the middle of the afternoon. The caller further reported that she was scared 

by the person’s actions, and she spoke in an excited manner. These facts portrayed erratic and 

potentially dangerous behavior that warranted police intervention to investigate and prevent a 

possible incident of violence. Thus, even if the officers lacked probable cause that a criminal 

offense had already occurred, they still had reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was 

afoot—that the individual waving a firearm from a moving car in a populated area while yelling 

slurs, causing bystanders to be scared, posed an ongoing threat to public safety. In both Wooden

and Drake, the Seventh Circuit found that similar tips of potentially dangerous behavior 
4 

involving firearms justified Terry stops to prevent dangerous situations, without identifying any 

particular criminal offense that had already been committed. Drake, 456 F.3d at 774–75 (“[W]e 

recognize the particular duty of police officers to speedily respond to emergency situations 

reported by individuals through the 911 system. . . . It is enough in this case that [the caller’s] 

911 call reported an immediate threat to public safety and that she provided sufficient details to 

allow the officers to identify the suspects.”); Wooden, 551 F.3d at 650 (noting that “a report by a 

person claiming to have seen a gun drawn in public provided articulable suspicion for a Terry 

stop and frisk,” and finding reasonable suspicion where an anonymous 911 caller reported a man 

arguing with his girlfriend while holding a gun)); see also Fields, 373 F. App’x at 627–28. The 

same is true here. 

In addition, as the magistrate judge found, the 911 call provided reasonable suspicion that 

the individual had committed the offenses of pointing a firearm or criminal recklessness. Mr. 

Jeanes’ objection is that waving a firearm does not itself constitute those offenses. However, the 

individual in question was not merely waving a firearm, he was waving a firearm out of a 

moving car while driving through a populated area in the middle of the day, causing at least one 

nearby driver to be afraid for her safety. Under those circumstances, the officers could 

reasonably suspect that the firearm had been pointed at a bystander or created a substantial risk 

of bodily injury to another person. See Al-Saud v. Indiana, 658 N.E.2d 907, 910 (Ind. 1995) 

(“The brandishing of a firearm in a congested area or during a dispute can create a variety of 

risks of bodily injury to others . . . .”). 

Finally, Mr. Jeanes argues that the tip did not identify the subject specifically enough for 

the officers to know which car to stop. Mr. Jeanes concedes that the caller stated that the person 

waving the firearm was a black male inside a black Suburban, but he argues that black 
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Suburbans are so ubiquitous that the officers could not pull over any such vehicle unless they had 

additional identifying details. The caller did not provide only the model and color of the vehicle 

and a description of an occupant, though; she identified its specific location at a specific time, 

along with its direction of travel. Officers found such a car with such an occupant in that same 

area and in that same direction only minutes later. No more was required, and the fact that 

another officer happened to see a different black Suburban an unspecified distance away after the 

firearm in question was found is irrelevant. Fields, 373 F. App’x at 628 (“‘[P]olice observation 

of an individual, fitting a police dispatch description of a person involved in a disturbance, near 

in time and geographic location to the disturbance,’ is sufficient to establish reasonable suspicion 

to investigate the disturbance.” (quoting United States v. Lenoir, 318 F.3d 725, 729 (7th Cir. 

2003))). 

For those reasons, the Court concurs with the report and recommendation and finds that 

the stop was supported by reasonable suspicion, so suppression is not warranted. Accordingly, 

the Court OVERRULES Mr. Jeanes’ objections [DE 35] to the Report and Recommendation; 

ADOPTS the Report and Recommendation [DE 34]; and DENIES the motion to suppress [DE 

22]. 

 SO ORDERED. 

 ENTERED: January 9, 2017 

 

 /s/ JON E. DEGUILIO 

 Judge 

 United States District Court