REVERSE and REMAND; and Opinion Filed April 19, 2018.

In The

Court of Appeals

Fifth District of Texas at Dallas

No. 05-17-00478-CR

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellant

V.

CARLOS JOVANNY MONTIEL-CONTRERAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the County Court at Law No. 3

Collin County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. 003-80927-2017

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Before Justices Lang, Brown, and Whitehill

Opinion by Justice Brown

The State of Texas appeals the trial court’s order granting appellee Carlos Jovanny 

Montiel-Contreras’s motion to suppress. Appellee was charged with driving while intoxicated 

after a police officer stopped his car at an apartment complex where the officer heard a gunshot. 

The trial court determined the detention was unlawful because the officer lacked reasonable 

suspicion to believe appellee had been engaged in criminal activity. We agree with the State that 

the trial court erred in determining the officer lacked reasonable suspicion. We reverse and 

remand.

At the hearing on the motion to suppress, the State presented the following evidence: 

testimony from Plano Police Sergeant Chad Blumrick, an experienced 15-year veteran of the Plano 

Police Department, an overhead photograph of the apartment complex, police call notes containing 

information Blumrick had access to before the stop, and an in-car video from Blumrick’s patrol 
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vehicle. Sergeant Blumrick testified that on the morning of December 30, 2016, he was patrolling 

in the area of 14th Street east of Shiloh Road because there had been two reports of gunshots in 

that area. The first call came in at 11:04 p.m., and the second call came in at 2:42 a.m. The first 

caller reported seeing someone with a gun at the Waterford on the Meadow apartment complex. 

The call notes indicate the complainant advised she heard three gunshots and saw a black male 

walking north between buildings 4 and 5 with a handgun. Officers were dispatched to the location, 

but were unable to find a suspect. The second call came in from 14th Street and Shiloh Road, 

which was the general area of the apartment complex, and the caller reported hearing four to five 

gunshots. The call notes indicate the caller reported hearing multiple shots in the last fifteen 

minutes. Another officer, Robert Dorman, wrote in the call notes at 2:58 a.m. that he heard “the 

noises” three times while on patrol in the area that night. Each time there were “five bangs in 

quick succession.” Officers were dispatched again but could not locate “any evidence or anybody 

with any weapons.” 

Sergeant Blumrick waited in a parking lot across the street from the apartment complex to 

see if there were “any gunshots or anybody leaving that area.” He left the parking lot, and at 3:15

a.m., as he was driving by Waterford on the Meadow on 14th Street, he heard a loud bang like a 

gunshot. Blumrick backed up on 14th Street and pulled into the apartment complex. He had 

planned to search the area on foot, but as soon as he pulled over, he saw headlights from a car 

traveling on “the drive of the apartments.” He saw the car make a right turn toward his location. 

Blumrick turned on his overhead lights and stopped the car. Appellee was the driver and had a 

passenger with him. They were the only people Blumrick saw leaving the immediate area where 

he heard the gunshot. The sergeant testified he believed there was a high probability that vehicle 

was involved in the gunshot he heard because the vehicle was leaving immediately after he heard 

the gunshot. He estimated there was less than a minute between his hearing the gunshot and seeing 

the vehicle pull out of the area. The in-car video shows Sergeant Blumrick’s car backing up and 
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pulling into the apartment complex and confirms that the sergeant stopped the vehicle soon after 

he sees it.

On cross-examination, Sergeant Blumrick testified that Waterford on the Meadow is a very 

large apartment complex. He did not know the number of buildings or apartment units, but agreed

there were approximately 47 buildings and almost 350 units. Hundreds of residents live at the 

complex, and hundreds of vehicles park there. All reports of gunshots, however, came from the 

south side of the complex. Appellee was not driving abnormally, recklessly, or at an excessive 

speed, and did not commit any traffic violations. Appellee is not a black male, nor was his 

passenger, and Blumrick could see appellee before he stopped the car.

The trial court granted appellee’s motion to suppress and made findings of fact and 

conclusions of law. The court’s findings are consistent with Blumrick’s testimony and supported 

by the record. For example, the court found that as Blumrick was exiting his vehicle at the 

complex, he saw headlights coming from the same area from which the sound of the gunshot came. 

At that time, Blumrick saw no other moving vehicles or individuals leaving the area. The court 

concluded that Blumrick did not have reasonable suspicion to believe appellee had been engaged 

in criminal activity and, therefore, his detention of appellee was unlawful. 

Generally, a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress is reviewed under an abuse of 

discretion standard. Dyar v. State, 125 S.W.3d 460, 462 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003). When, as here,

we are presented with a question of law based on undisputed facts, however, we perform a de novo 

review. Id. 

A law enforcement officer may stop and briefly detain a person for investigative purposes 

on less information than is constitutionally required for probable cause to arrest. Foster v. State, 

326 S.W.3d 609, 613 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). To stop or briefly detain an individual, an officer 

must be able to articulate something more than an “inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 

‘hunch.’” Id. The officer must have some minimal level of objective justification for making the 
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stop. Id. In other words, he must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken 

together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant the intrusion. Id. The 

reasonableness of a temporary detention must be examined in terms of the totality of the 

circumstances. Id. 

The State compares this case to three others in which courts determined officers had 

reasonable suspicion to stop vehicles observed in areas where the officers heard gunshots. See 

Faulkner v. State, 727 S.W.2d 793, 796 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1987, pet. ref’d) (officer 

heard gunshots coming from school at 3 a.m. and moments later saw defendant’s truck make an 

unusually quick U-turn near where he heard shots; no one else was in area); Medina v. State, No. 

04-12-00071-CR, 2013 WL 2645012, at *2 (Tex. App.—San Antonio June 12, 2013, no pet.) 

(mem. op., not designated for publication) (three seconds after officer heard gunshot, he observed 

car, which came from direction of gunshot, “screeching up to the stop sign,” and there were no 

other vehicles on road); Carraway v. State, No. B14-92-00758-CR, 1993 WL 263400, at *2 (Tex. 

App.—Houston [14th Dist.] July 15, 1993, no pet.) (not designated for publication) (officer heard 

gunfire erupt from apartment complex and immediately saw defendant’s car exit complex 

recklessly and at high rate of speed). Appellee argues these cases are distinguishable because the 

drivers were each operating the vehicle in a suspicious manner. Here, it is undisputed there was 

nothing suspicious about the way appellee was driving. 

Yet looking at the totality of the circumstances that night, Sergeant Blumrick articulated 

other facts that make his decision to stop appellee more than a mere hunch. The gunshot Blumrick 

heard was not an isolated incident. There had been multiple reports of repeated gunshots at or near 

the apartment complex over a four-hour period. Blumrick was patrolling that area due to the 

reports and had been parked in a nearby lot keeping an eye on the complex to see if there were 

“any gunshots or anybody leaving that area.” Right after Blumrick heard the gunshot, appellee 

was leaving the immediate area of the complex where Blumrick heard the shot, and appellee and 
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his passenger were the only people leaving the area. We note the stop occurred at a time of day 

when typically not many people would be out. See Crain v. State, 315 S.W.3d 43, 53 (Tex. Crim. 

App. 2010) (while time of day is not suspicious by itself, it is factor to be considered in making 

determination of reasonable suspicion). The fact that appellee did not match the description of the 

suspect described in the first call that came in at 11 p.m. did not mean that Sergeant Blumrick was 

not entitled to detain appellee to investigate the gunshot he personally heard at 3:15 a.m. Appellee 

relies on a prior opinion in which this Court determined there was no reasonable suspicion. That 

case is distinguishable, however, because although the defendant drove a car that left an apartment 

complex after a gunshot, the gunshot came from an unknown direction and the officer did not 

recognize the defendant as a man who disappeared from sight after the shot was heard. See 

Deckard v. State, No. 05-92-00586-CR, 1993 WL 124830, at *2–3 (Tex. App.—Dallas Apr. 12, 

1993, no pet.) (not designated for publication)1. We conclude the trial court erred in its conclusion 

that Sergeant Blumrick lacked reasonable suspicion, based on the totality of the circumstances, to 

stop appellee. We sustain the State’s issue. 

We reverse the trial court’s order and remand for further proceedings.

Do Not Publish

TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).

170478F.U05

 

1 Both sides rely upon unpublished criminal cases. While these cases have no precedential value, we consider them for purposes of 

comparison, rather than viewing them as binding authority. TEX. R. APP. P. 47.7(a); see Roberson v. State, 420 S.W.3d 832, 837 (Tex. Crim. App. 

2013).

/Ada Brown/

ADA BROWN

JUSTICE
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Court of Appeals

Fifth District of Texas at Dallas

JUDGMENT

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellant

No. 05-17-00478-CR V.

CARLOS JOVANNY MONTIELCONTRERAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the County Court at Law 

No. 3, Collin County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. 003-80927-2017.

Opinion delivered by Justice Brown, 

Justices Lang and Whitehill participating.

Based on the Court’s opinion of this date, the trial court’s April 17, 2017 order is 

REVERSED and the cause REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Judgment entered this 19th day of April, 2018.