The defendant argues that this case should be controlled by Young because there is nothing inherently suspicious about waiting for someone in a parking lot. However, this argument overlooks several factual distinctions between the two cases. First, the inference of illegal activity was stronger here than in Young because the lot was posted with a no trespassing sign which showed that there were certain people who could not lawfully park in the parking lot. In Young, there was no reason to question whether Young was lawfully walking on the sidewalk. Second, Amos's explanation, that he had been waiting for a friend, was less compelling than that relied upon by Young because walking is the principal activity for which sidewalks were designed, whereas waiting in a car for a friend is only a secondary activity in a parking lot.
Most people simply park their cars in the lot and leave.
The probability that the occupant of a parked car is doing something other than waiting for a friend is further strengthened when the occupant subsequently leaves without anyone joining him, but a person was seen approaching the car, appearing to recognize that police officers were nearby and moving quickly out of the parking lot. That Amos had been parked in the lot for only a brief time is irrelevant, since the officers had no way of knowing how long he had been sitting there. 2 Reasonable suspicion is determined from the totality of the circumstances within an officer's knowledge. Here, the facts and circumstances within the officers' knowledge included not only Amos sitting in a parked car in an area where drug sales were commonly made from parked cars and where trespassing was not permitted, but they also included Amos leaving without a passenger. In addition, unlike Young , the officers in this case had reason to suspect that Amos had been trespassing.