DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA

FOURTH DISTRICT

J.H., a child,

Appellant,

v.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

Appellee.

No. 4D17-2466

[October 31, 2018]

Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Palm 

Beach County; Rosemarie Scher, Judge; L.T. Case No. 502016CJ001769A.

Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Virginia Murphy, Assistant 

Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Heidi L. 

Bettendorf, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

WARNER, J.

Appellant challenges the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress 

evidence, which he claims was gathered after an unlawful stop without 

reasonable suspicion. Officers stopped appellant after a 911 caller from a 

restaurant, stated that drug dealers were out in front of the restaurant. 

Based upon the totality of the circumstances, we agree with appellant that 

the officer lacked reasonable suspicion to stop appellant. We reverse.

A dispatcher from the West Palm Beach Police Department received a 

911 call mid-day from a person identifying herself as having a restaurant 

on Sapodilla Avenue in West Palm Beach. The caller reported that drug 

dealers were on the corner. She described them as three black males, two 

of whom were wearing white t-shirts. She did not describe any drug selling 

activity, but she said that as soon as they would see a police vehicle, they 

would disappear and come back immediately.1 She said the drug dealers 

 

1 The trial court, as well as the parties, indicate that the caller stated the men 

were “selling” drugs. We have reviewed the record, and the caller never stated 

that she observed the men selling drugs. Rather, she said that “drug dealers are 
2

moved between a few blocks around the restaurant. The caller complained 

that she had customers from all over South Florida, but as soon as they 

would see “that,” the customers would be scared. The dispatcher told the 

caller that someone would be there to check things out. 

An officer with some familiarity with the neighborhood, which she 

described as a high crime area, was dispatched to investigate a “suspicious 

person” call. According to the officer, she was told that there were three 

black males on the corner of 7th and Sapodilla possibly selling drugs. 

They were wearing t-shirts and shorts. However, the restaurant caller did 

not mention shorts in her 911 call. When the officer and her partner got 

to the corner, she observed one adult black male in a white t-shirt. When 

this individual saw the police vehicle, he began walking to the rear of the 

building, an apartment complex. There were no other persons in the area.

The officers exited their vehicle, started walking down the alley towards 

the building, and ordered the male to stop. He continued walking to the 

rear of the apartment complex. As the officer rounded the corner, she saw 

two black juvenile males, wearing no shirts and peeking into an apartment 

window. The officer recognized appellant, J.H., as one of the boys peeking 

into the window because he had been in the area on a prior call to which 

she had responded. The officer knew that J.H. lived in the apartment 

complex. 

When the juveniles saw the officer, they began walking down the alley 

in the other direction. Then they saw another officer at the other end of 

the alley. At that point, they reached into their pockets, and the first officer 

ordered them to stop because she was nervous for her safety and that of 

other officers on the scene. The officer ordered J.H. to walk towards her 

and to take his hands out of his pocket. As he approached her, she saw a 

container in his hand. It was a white, cylindrical container with a red cap 

and appeared to be a Krazy Glue container with the label off. Based on 

her training and experience, she knew that these containers are commonly 

known to hold crack cocaine. She conducted a pat-down search of J.H. 

for weapons and found a handgun. She then arrested him. Prior to seeing 

the Krazy Glue container, the officer had witnessed no criminal behavior 

by J.H.

The State charged J.H. as a delinquent in possession of a firearm, 

possession of cocaine while in possession of a firearm, and carrying a 

 

out there by 7th and Sapodilla.” While the dispatcher asked “you said they were 

selling,” the caller did not respond to this. Instead, she corrected her physical 

description of two of the men as being in white t-shirts.
3

concealed weapon. J.H. moved to suppress the cocaine and the gun, 

contending that their seizure was the result of a stop unsupported by 

reasonable suspicion. The State contended that the officers had received 

a call from a citizen informant, thus making the call on the higher end of 

reliability. Based upon the totality of circumstances, the officers had 

reasonable suspicion to stop J.H. and seize the drugs and weapon. The 

defense argued that the boys did not match the description given by the 

caller, and there was no reasonable suspicion to detain J.H. when the 

officers surrounded J.H. in the alley and ordered him to stop and to take 

his hands out of his pocket. 

The trial court found that the 911 caller was a readily identifiable 

citizen informant because she gave the name of the restaurant and its 

address. As a citizen informant, the caller’s information is at the high end 

of the reliability scale and can justify a reasonable suspicion. The court 

ruled that the officer had a reasonable suspicion, based on the content of 

the 911 call by a citizen informant, to detain J.H. Additionally, the court 

ruled that the action of all three of the suspects of reaching into their 

pockets, plus the sight of the glue container, which was commonly known 

to hold crack cocaine, justified a stop and frisk. Considering the totality 

of the circumstances, the higher veracity and reliability of the citizen 

informant, and the three men’s actions in walking away and their 

subsequent actions in the alley, the court denied the motion to suppress. 

Thereafter, J.H. entered a no contest plea and reserved the right to 

appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. The State conceded that the 

motion to suppress was dispositive. J.H. was adjudicated delinquent and 

sentenced to a non-secure residential program under the Department of 

Juvenile Justice. J.H. now appeals.

In reviewing a motion to suppress, “appellate courts . . . accord a 

presumption of correctness to the trial court’s rulings on motions to 

suppress with regard to the trial court’s determination of historical facts, 

but appellate courts must independently review mixed questions of law 

and fact that ultimately determine constitutional issues arising in the 

context of the Fourth and Fifth Amendment and, by extension, article I, 

section 9 of the Florida Constitution.” Connor v. State, 803 So. 2d 598, 

608 (Fla. 2001); see also Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699 

(1996). “The standard of review of the findings of fact is whether 

competent, substantial evidence supports the findings.” Hines v. State, 

737 So. 2d 1182, 1184 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999). But the courts review the trial 

court’s application of the law to the facts de novo. Id.

There are three levels of police-citizen encounters: consensual 

encounters, investigatory stops, and full-blown arrests. Popple v. State,
4

626 So. 2d 185, 186 (Fla. 1993). “During a consensual encounter a citizen 

may either voluntarily comply with a police officer’s requests or choose to 

ignore them. Because the citizen is free to leave during a consensual 

encounter, constitutional safeguards are not invoked.” Id. During the 

second level of police-citizen encounter, an investigatory stop is involved. 

Police “may reasonably detain a citizen temporarily if the officer has a 

reasonable suspicion that a person has committed, is committing, or is 

about to commit a crime.” Id. It “requires a well-founded, articulable 

suspicion of criminal activity.” Id. The third level of police-citizen 

encounter, an arrest, “must be supported by probable cause that a crime 

has been or is being committed.” Id. This case involves the second level 

of encounter and requires us to analyze whether the officer had a wellfounded suspicion of criminal activity when she ordered J.H. to stop.

“Tips from known reliable informants, such as an identifiable citizen 

who observes criminal conduct and reports it, along with his own identity 

to the police, will almost invariably be found sufficient to justify police 

action.” J.L. v. State, 727 So. 2d 204, 206 (Fla. 1998), aff’d sub nom.

Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266 (2000). The trial court found that the 911 

caller was a citizen informant. Even though she declined to give her name,

her identity was readily ascertainable, as she gave the name of the

restaurant from which she was calling. See State v. Maynard, 783 So. 2d 

226, 230 (Fla. 2001) (finding that to qualify as a citizen informant, a 

person’s name need not be known so long as the person’s identity is readily 

discoverable).

However, “founded suspicion is dependent on both the informant’s 

reliability and the content of the information she relays; courts consider 

both factors in determining whether the totality of the circumstances 

justifies a stop.” Ford v. State, 783 So. 2d 284, 285 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001) 

(citing Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 329, 110 S. Ct. 2412, 110 L. Ed.

2d 301 (1990)). In Ford, a citizen informant approached police and stated 

that she had just seen a black man approach an older white man in front 

of a store. Id. The white man put something in his pocket and handed 

the black man cash. Id. The informant believed she had witnessed a drug 

transaction. Id. Officers located Ford, the white man, and they stopped 

him, searched him, and found drugs. Id. In overturning the denial of a 

motion to suppress, the Second District determined that the citizen’s 

information did not provide a founded suspicion to stop Ford. Id. at 286. 

The only information that the citizen conveyed was observing a white man 

hand a black man money and receive something in return, activity which 

was as consistent with legal behavior as it was with a drug transaction. 

Id. Thus, the officers did not have a founded suspicion to detain Ford. 
5

Applying the analysis of Ford to this case, the information provided by 

the citizen informant was that three drug dealers, who were black men,

were standing on the corner near her restaurant. The informant did not 

state how she knew they were drug dealers, nor did she state that she saw 

them selling drugs. At least two were wearing white t-shirts. They would 

move up and down the block, and when they saw a police vehicle, they 

would disappear, only to reappear after the police vehicle passed. This 

information does not describe any criminal activity at all, whether it is 

information supplied by a citizen informant or witnessed by police. “A 

hand-to-hand exchange can warrant a detention when a law enforcement 

officer sees what transpires and his training and experience lead him to 

believe he has witnessed a drug transaction.” Id. However, if an officer

merely saw individuals, whom the officer knew were involved with drugs,

standing on a corner, and the only other activity that the officer witnessed 

were those individuals disappearing when a police vehicle passed, the 

officer may have a bare suspicion but not a founded suspicion that 

criminal activity was occurring. 

Considering the totality of the circumstances, the remaining 

observations of the officer also do not provide founded suspicion to stop 

J.H. After following one white-shirted individual down the alley, the officer 

observed J.H. and another juvenile, both of whom were shirtless, looking 

into an apartment window. The officer did not testify that J.H. was known 

to have previously engaged in drug dealing; she merely knew that he lived 

in the apartment building. This information does not increase suspicion 

of drug dealing, nor does it match the description given by the citizen 

informant, who stated that at least two of the drug dealers wore white tshirts. The informant never mentioned how the third was dressed. The 

fact that J.H. began to walk away from the officer, until he saw the other 

officer coming up the alley from the other direction, does not add anything 

to support founded suspicion, because “reasonable suspicion of criminal 

activity is not established simply because a defendant leaves the scene 

when an officer nears.” R.J.C. v. State, 84 So. 3d 1250, 1256 (Fla. 4th DCA 

2012). While “headlong flight” from an officer in a high crime area may 

warrant founded suspicion to justify a Terry stop, see Illinois v. Wardlow,

528 U.S. 119, 124 (2000), this was not “headlong flight.” See also Lee v. 

State, 868 So. 2d 577, 581-82 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004) (finding no evidence of 

“headlong flight” where man walked quickly away from other suspects 

when police arrived, but there was no other suspicious activity). J.H. was 

walking away from the officer in an alley in which his home was located.

The officer ordered J.H. to stop and then ordered him to take his hands 

out of his pocket before the officer observed the glue container which she 

testified was indicative of a drug container. She had no founded suspicion 
6

of criminal activity prior to seeing the container. In fact, she testified that 

she had seen nothing to suggest criminal behavior before seeing it.

J.H. was detained when the officer ordered him to stop. Because the 

officer had no founded suspicion of criminal activity, the stop violated the 

Fourth Amendment. We therefore reverse and remand with directions to 

dismiss the petition. 

MAY and FORST, JJ., concur.

* * *

Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.