Title: Commonwealth v. Sweeting-Bailey
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SJC-13086
State: Massachusetts
Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court
Date: December 22, 2021

NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal 
revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound 
volumes of the Official Reports.  If you find a typographical 
error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of 
Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 
Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-
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SJC-13086 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  ZAHKUAN SWEETING-BAILEY.1 
 
 
 
Bristol.     May 3, 2021. - December 22, 2021. 
 
Present:  Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Lowy, Cypher, Kafker, Wendlandt, 
& Georges, JJ. 
 
 
Firearms.  Motor Vehicle, Firearms.  Constitutional Law, Search 
and seizure, Reasonable suspicion, Investigatory stop, Stop 
and frisk.  Search and Seizure, Threshold police inquiry, 
Reasonable suspicion, Protective frisk.  Threshold Police 
Inquiry.  Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress, Plea. 
 
 
 
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on March 15, 2018. 
 
A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Raffi 
N. Yessayan, J., and a conditional plea was accepted by him. 
 
After review by the Appeals Court, the Supreme Judicial 
Court granted leave to obtain further appellate review. 
 
 
Elaine Fronhofer for the defendant. 
Shoshana E. Stern, Assistant District Attorney, for the 
Commonwealth. 
David Rassoul Rangaviz, Committee for Public Counsel 
Services, Radha Natarajan, Katharine Naples-Mitchell, Oren N. 
Nimni, Chauncey B. Wood, Erin Fowler, & Leon Smith, for 
 
 
1 As is our custom, we recite the defendant's name as it 
appears in the indictments. 
2 
 
Committee for Public Counsel Services & others, amici curiae, 
submitted a brief. 
 
 
CYPHER, J.  Following a routine traffic stop for an 
improper lane change, the defendant, Zahkuan Sweeting-Bailey, 
who had been a rear seat passenger in the vehicle, was ordered 
out of the vehicle and was pat frisked.  Although the stop began 
as routine, when officers approached the vehicle, the front seat 
passenger immediately got out of the car, engaged in an argument 
with the officers, and took a threatening fighting stance.  The 
officers, who were familiar with that passenger from prior 
encounters, found his angry outburst highly suspicious and 
believed he was trying to distract them from the vehicle because 
there was a firearm inside.  The three male passengers in the 
car, including the defendant, were known to the officers as gang 
members with prior involvement with firearms.  During the 
patfrisk of the defendant, an officer found a firearm tucked 
into the waist of his pants, and he was arrested. 
The defendant was indicted on a number of firearm offenses.2  
After a judge in the Superior Court denied the defendant's 
 
2 The charges included (1) unlicensed possession of a large 
capacity firearm, G. L. c. 269, § 10 (m); (2) unlicensed 
possession of a large capacity feeding device, G. L. c. 269, 
§ 10 (m); (3) carrying a firearm without a license, in violation 
of G. L. c. 269, § 10 (a), when he "had been previously found 
delinquent in Juvenile Court of one or more violent crimes," 
G. L. c. 269, § 10G; and (4) carrying a loaded firearm without a 
license, G. L. c. 269, § 10 (n). 
3 
 
motion to suppress, he entered a conditional guilty plea to the 
charges of possession of a firearm without a license and 
possession of a large capacity feeding device, and the other 
charges were dismissed.  The defendant appealed from his 
convictions, and the Appeals Court affirmed.  We granted the 
defendant's application for further appellate review.  After 
considering the facts and inferences as a whole, we conclude 
that the officers had reasonable suspicion, based on specific, 
articulable facts, that the defendant might have been armed and 
dangerous.  Commonwealth v. Gomes, 453 Mass. 506, 511 (2009).  
Accordingly, we affirm the order denying the defendant's motion 
to suppress.3 
Background.  At approximately 7 P.M. on a February evening, 
three detectives from the New Bedford police department's gang 
unit, Kory Kubik, Gene Fortes, and Roberto DaCunha, observed a 
red sedan change lanes abruptly, causing another vehicle to slam 
on its brakes in order to avoid a collision.  The officers 
followed the sedan as it turned into the parking lot of a fast 
food restaurant, activated their lights, and initiated a traffic 
 
3 We acknowledge the amicus brief submitted by the Committee 
for Public Counsel Services; the Charles Hamilton Houston 
Institute for Race & Justice; the New England Innocence Project; 
American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, Inc.; Lawyers 
for Civil Rights; Citizens for Juvenile Justice; Rights Behind 
Bars; and the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense 
Lawyers on behalf of the defendant. 
4 
 
stop.  At that point, the officers did not know who was in the 
red sedan. 
The vehicle was parked facing toward the restaurant, and 
the entrance to the restaurant was on the driver's side.  Once 
the vehicle stopped, but before the officers approached, one of 
the passengers, Raekwan Paris, got out of the vehicle and began 
pacing between the officers and the vehicle on the passenger 
side, walking away from the entrance to the restaurant.  Paris 
was angrily confronting them regarding the reason for the stop. 
The officers were familiar with Paris from previous 
encounters, including field interrogations and arrests for 
firearm offenses.  In the past, they had observed that he was 
cooperative and polite.  At the time of this stop, Paris had 
been released on bail for a 2016 firearm charge.4  Both Kubik and 
DaCunha had been involved in the 2016 arrest and recalled that 
Paris's demeanor had been calm and cordial during that 
encounter.  Kubik also had interacted with Paris during two 
different traffic stops and had found his demeanor to be 
similarly cooperative and calm.  Fortes, previously a school 
resource officer, had known Paris "since he was a young kid."  
Fortes had seen Paris at school events over the years and 
 
4 Raekwan Paris subsequently was convicted of this charge, 
but the Appeals Court overturned the conviction, concluding that 
police lacked reasonable suspicion for an investigatory stop.  
See Commonwealth v. Paris, 97 Mass. App. Ct. 785, 790 (2020). 
5 
 
recalled that he had "always had a good rapport" with Paris.  
Additionally, Fortes had had interactions with Paris during car 
stops and field interrogations.  Fortes described Paris as 
"respectful" during all encounters. 
During this encounter, however, DaCunha instructed Paris 
three times to reenter the car, but he refused.  While two of 
the officers were occupied with Paris, the third attempted to 
approach the driver's window to speak with the female driver, 
but became concerned by the "escalating" situation between Paris 
and the other officers.  The officers were unable to address the 
reason for the stop because of Paris's behavior.  They observed 
that he was "becoming more angry."  Fortes testified that, at 
this time, they were entirely focused on Paris:  "his behavior 
was so agitated . . . and different that all my focus was -- was 
really on him."  Fortes also testified that Paris took "a bladed 
stance" and that he was unsure if Paris was "getting ready . . . 
to attack" him.  Fortes observed that Paris was "sizing [him] 
up" and found this behavior to be "very uncharacteristic of 
him."  The officers also observed that Paris had "a closed, 
clenched fist" before he was handcuffed and that Paris did not 
appear to be intoxicated. 
Paris was brought to the rear of the red sedan, handcuffed, 
and pat frisked.  Only then were the officers able to turn their 
attention to the occupants of the car.  The officers issued an 
6 
 
exit order and conducted a patfrisk of the driver and the two 
remaining passengers.5  Although Fortes testified that Paris 
"calmed down a little" after he was brought to the back of the 
car, it is important to note that from the time Paris had gotten 
out of the car to the time the defendant was asked to get out of 
the car, only ninety seconds had elapsed. 
The three male occupants of the vehicle were familiar to 
the officers at the time of the stop.  Two of the officers had 
been involved in an incident about eighteen months earlier in 
which Paris had been arrested on two firearms-related charges.  
Officers had information that the back seat passenger, Carlos 
Cortes, had posted pictures of a firearm on social media within 
the previous month and were aware that the defendant had a three 
year old juvenile adjudication for an offense involving a 
firearm.  Additionally, the officers were aware that Paris was a 
member of two gangs, the United Front and Bloods.  The officers 
also were aware that the defendant was a member of the Bloods 
gang and that Cortes was a member of a gang in Fall River. 
Discussion.  A patfrisk is permissible only where an 
officer has reasonable suspicion that the stopped individual may 
be armed and dangerous.  See Commonwealth v. Torres-Pagan, 484 
Mass. 34, 36–37 (2020).  In assessing whether an officer has 
 
5 The defendant does not challenge the stop or the exit 
order. 
7 
 
reasonable suspicion to justify a patfrisk, "we ask 'whether a 
reasonably prudent [person] in the [officer's] position would be 
warranted'" in the belief "that the safety of the police or that 
of other persons was in danger."  Commonwealth v. Torres, 433 
Mass. 669, 675-676 (2001), quoting Commonwealth v. Vazquez, 426 
Mass. 99, 103 (1997).  See Commonwealth v. Gonsalves, 429 Mass. 
658, 666 (1999).  An innocent explanation for an individual's 
actions "does not remove [those actions] from consideration in 
the reasonable suspicion analysis."  Commonwealth v. DePeiza, 
449 Mass. 367, 373 (2007). 
In Torres-Pagan, 484 Mass. at 36 n.3, we clarified that 
"reasonable suspicion" that an individual is armed and 
dangerous, not "reasonable belief," "is the preferred patfrisk 
standard" (citations omitted).  See Commonwealth v. Narcisse, 
457 Mass. 1, 9 (2010).  We acknowledged, however, that "the two 
standards are interrelated and perhaps even interchangeable."  
Torres-Pagan, supra.  "The purpose behind the protective 
measures allowed by Terry [v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968),] is to 
enable an officer to confirm or dispel reasonable suspicions" 
that the stopped individual may be armed and dangerous.  
Commonwealth v. Pagan, 440 Mass. 62, 68 (2003). 
In reviewing a ruling on a motion to suppress, "we accept 
the judge's subsidiary findings of fact absent clear error but 
conduct an independent review of [the judge's] ultimate findings 
8 
 
and conclusion of law."  Commonwealth v. Tremblay, 480 Mass. 
645, 652 (2018), quoting Commonwealth v. Clarke, 461 Mass. 336, 
340 (2012).  "The determination of the weight and credibility of 
the testimony is the function and responsibility of the judge 
who saw and heard the witnesses, and not of this court."  
Commonwealth v. Neves, 474 Mass. 355, 360 (2016), quoting 
Commonwealth v. Moon, 380 Mass. 751, 756 (1980).  "[F]indings 
drawn partly or wholly from testimonial evidence are accorded 
deference and are not set aside unless clearly erroneous."  
Tremblay, supra at 655.  Here, the motion judge found the 
officers' testimony "credible in all relevant respects."  The 
motion judge also concluded that the officers' inference that 
Paris was attempting to distract them from the vehicle was 
reasonable.  We accept the motion judge's finding that the 
officers believed Paris was attempting to create a diversion; 
however, we review de novo the motion judge's conclusion that 
the officers' inference was objectively reasonable.  See 
Commonwealth v. Mercado, 422 Mass. 367, 369 (1996) (we "make an 
independent determination of the correctness of the judge's 
application of constitutional principles to the facts as 
found"). 
Factors that the motion judge considered included Paris's 
"uncharacteristic" behavior during the traffic stop, which 
officers interpreted as an effort to draw their attention away 
9 
 
from the vehicle and its contents, the prior involvement with 
firearms of the three male passengers in the car, their known 
gang affiliations, and the high crime area in which the traffic 
stop occurred.  Although each of these factors standing alone 
would be insufficient to justify the patfrisk of the defendant, 
the totality of these factors justified not only the exit order, 
but also the patfrisk. 
We address in turn each of the factors that the motion 
judge considered, keeping in mind that "[t]he officer need not 
be absolutely certain that the individual is armed; the issue is 
whether a reasonably prudent [person] in the circumstances would 
be warranted in the belief that [his or her] safety or that of 
others was in danger."  Terry, 392 U.S. at 27.  First, we 
consider what the motion judge found to be the most critical 
factor in the analysis:  Paris's behavior during the stop.  We 
defer to the finding of the motion judge, who heard and saw the 
testimony, that the officers' suspicion was based on a 
reasonable inference, in light of their training and experience, 
as well as their familiarity with Paris, that Paris was trying 
to distract them from the stopped vehicle.  We further conclude 
that the officers' inference was objectively reasonable given 
these facts.  See id. at 30 ("where a police officer observes 
unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light 
of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot and that 
10 
 
the persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently 
dangerous . . . , he is entitled for the protection of himself 
and others in the area to conduct a carefully limited search 
. . . in an attempt to discover weapons"). 
"[An officer's] suspicion must be based on specific, 
articulable facts and reasonable inferences drawn therefrom."  
Commonwealth v. Moses, 408 Mass. 136, 140 (1990).  In other 
words, reasonable suspicion that a defendant may be armed and 
dangerous derives not only from specific facts, but also from an 
officer's reasonable inferences drawn from those facts.  See 
Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 64 (1968) ("In the case of the 
self-protective search for weapons, [an officer] must be able to 
point to particular facts from which he reasonably inferred that 
the individual was armed and dangerous"); Commonwealth v. Silva, 
366 Mass. 402, 406 (1974) ("we have required that the police 
officer's action be based on specific and articulable facts and 
the specific reasonable inferences which follow from such facts 
in light of the officer's experience").  See also Illinois v. 
Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 124-125 (2000) ("In reviewing the 
propriety of an officer's conduct, courts do not have available 
empirical studies dealing with inferences drawn from suspicious 
behavior, and we cannot reasonably demand scientific certainty 
from judges or law enforcement officers where none exists.  
Thus, the determination of reasonable suspicion must be based on 
11 
 
commonsense judgments and inferences about human behavior").  
Police also may rely on their training and experience as a basis 
for reasonable suspicion.  See DePeiza, 449 Mass. at 373.  See 
also United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002) (officers 
should "draw on their own experience and specialized training to 
make inferences from and deductions about the cumulative 
information available to them that might well elude an untrained 
person" [quotation and citation omitted]); United States v. 
Zambrana, 428 F.3d 670, 677 (7th Cir. 2005) ("in assessing the 
evidence presented by law enforcement officers, a district court 
should be mindful of the officers' experience, their training 
and the pressure-filled circumstances under which they fulfill 
their duties"). 
The motion judge credited the testimony of the three police 
witnesses entirely, including their testimony that they believed 
Paris's erratic behavior was intended to divert their attention 
from the car.  See Neves, 474 Mass. at 360, citing Moon, 380 
Mass. at 756.  Specifically, the motion judge found that "[t]he 
officers had a legitimate concern at that point that there may 
be a weapon in the car because of the past dealing with [Paris] 
and his behavior on this date."6  See Commonwealth v. Kennedy, 
 
 
6 In his dissent, Justice Gaziano faults the court for, as 
he puts it, "conclud[ing] that Paris's motive in undertaking his 
actions . . . could be imputed to the defendant, thereby 
providing reasonable suspicion that the defendant was armed and 
12 
 
426 Mass. 703, 708 (1998) (deference to motion judge's 
assessment of credibility of testimonial evidence extends to 
inferences "derived reasonably from the testimony"). 
The defendant argues that the officers' conclusion that 
Paris's erratic behavior was an effort to draw their attention 
away from the vehicle and its contents was a "mere hunch," 
rather than a reasonable inference.  Silva, 366 Mass. at 406.7  A 
"hunch" is a subjective opinion that has no basis in fact.  See 
Commonwealth v. Villagran, 477 Mass. 711, 715-716, 718 (2017).  
Although the officers may have had the subjective opinion that 
Paris was attempting to create a diversion, we consider whether 
the officers' actions were objectively reasonable.  "The 
subjective intentions of police are irrelevant so long as their 
actions were objectively reasonable."  Commonwealth v. Cruz, 459 
 
dangerous, and that Paris was attempting to distract police from 
becoming aware of this fact."  Post at    .  The court makes no 
such mental leap.  We conclude only, as the judge did, that 
Paris's conduct gave rise to a reasonable inference that Paris 
was attempting to distract the officers' attention from the car 
because there was a firearm somewhere inside the car. 
 
7 The defendant in his brief and Justice Gaziano in his 
dissent make much of the fact that the officers testified that 
their actions were based on a hunch.  See post at    .  This is 
a misrepresentation of the testimony.  Defense counsel asked one 
officer:  "[I]t's fair to say [your actions and the actions of 
the other detectives] were entirely based on a hunch?"  The 
officer responded:  "It was more of a fear, yes."  The officer 
further stated that his actions were based on a fear for 
"officer safety."  In any event, how the officer described his 
perceptions is not legally meaningful, as we are not bound to 
accept his characterization of his suspicion. 
13 
 
Mass. 459, 462 n.7 (2011).  See Commonwealth v. Kearse, 97 Mass. 
App. Ct. 297, 300 (2020), quoting Commonwealth v. Bacon, 381 
Mass. 642, 643 (1980) ("The test is not whether the officer is 
acting in good faith.  Rather, '[t]he test is an objective one'" 
[citation omitted]). 
In Villagran, 477 Mass. at 716, 718, we concluded that a 
vice-principal's opinion that an individual on school property 
"[had] something on him" and that "[s]omething[ was] not right" 
with no explanation for the basis of this claim was a mere 
"hunch" that did not justify a patfrisk.  There, at the time of 
the frisk, there was no conduct of which the officer was aware 
that would give rise to a specific and articulable reasonable 
suspicion that the defendant may be armed and dangerous.  Id. at 
718.  Similarly, in Gomes, 453 Mass. at 513, we concluded that 
officers' vague reference to shootings in the area in which the 
defendant had no apparent involvement was insufficient to give 
police reasonable suspicion to conduct a patfrisk. 
Here, the officers' inference that Paris was attempting to 
distract them from criminal activity in the vehicle was based in 
fact.  Immediately after the officers initiated the stop, Paris 
got out of the vehicle and began pacing between the officers and 
the vehicle.  He appeared to be angry and was uncooperative.  
The officers informed Paris that it was a traffic stop, but 
Paris refused to get in the vehicle when the officers instructed 
14 
 
him to do so multiple times.  One officer testified that he was 
unable to approach the driver's window because of his concern 
for the "escalating" situation between Paris and the other two 
officers.  Paris appeared to become angrier in time, and as a 
result, the officers were focused entirely on him, unable to 
attend to the vehicle or the other occupants in the vehicle.  As 
Paris became more agitated, officers noticed that he took "a 
bladed stance," and appeared to be preparing "to attack 
[Fortes]," whom he had known for years and with whom he had had 
a good rapport.  Officers also observed that Paris had "a 
closed, clenched fist." 
As a result of the quickly escalating situation and their 
concern for their safety, the officers handcuffed and pat 
frisked Paris.  Only then were they able to turn their attention 
to the other occupants of the car.  Although Paris appeared to 
"calm[] down a little" after he was brought to the rear of the 
vehicle, only one and one-half minutes had elapsed since Paris 
initially got out of the vehicle.  See Commonwealth v. Stampley, 
437 Mass. 323, 326 (2002), quoting Gonsalves, 429 Mass. at 671 
(Fried, J., dissenting) (considering constitutionally of exit 
order while "recognizing that law enforcement officials may have 
little time in which to avert the sometimes lethal dangers of 
routine traffic stops" [quotation and citation omitted]).  See 
also Commonwealth v. Silvelo, 486 Mass. 13, 16 (2020) ("Even 
15 
 
where the officers ask the defendant to get out of the vehicle, 
they may reasonably fear for their safety because any other 
occupant may access a weapon left behind by the defendant, or 
the defendant may access a weapon left behind upon returning to 
the vehicle"). 
As previously mentioned, the officers' suspicion that 
Paris's behavior was a diversion was compounded by the fact that 
the officers knew him from previous encounters and found his 
behavior to be especially uncharacteristic.8  The dissenting 
 
8 In Commonwealth v. Torres-Pagan, 484 Mass. 34, 40 (2020), 
we distinguished between furtive behavior that would warrant a 
suspicion that an individual may be armed and dangerous and 
surprising behavior.  "[S]urprise in response to unexpected 
behavior is not the same as suspicion that the person is armed 
and dangerous."  Id.  Here, the defendant's behavior was not 
just surprising, it was aggressive.  As Paris became more 
agitated, officers noticed that he took "a bladed stance" and 
appeared to be preparing "to attack [one officer]."  Officers 
also observed that Paris had "a closed, clenched fist."  Paris's 
behavior was one factor that gave rise to a heightened awareness 
of danger during the stop. 
 
In Torres-Pagan, we did not consider whether the furtive or 
aggressive movements of one passenger may warrant reasonable 
suspicion that another passenger may be armed and dangerous.  
Given the officers' reasonable inference that Paris's behavior 
was a diversion, it is reasonable to conclude that this factor 
was an important part of the totality of the circumstances 
analysis relating to the defendant.  See Commonwealth v. 
Stampley, 437 Mass. 323, 326 (2002), quoting Commonwealth v. 
Gonsalves, 429 Mass. 658, 665 (1999) ("the officer need point 
only to some fact or facts in the totality of the circumstances 
that would create in a police officer a heightened awareness of 
danger that would warrant an objectively reasonable officer in 
securing the scene in a more effective manner by ordering the 
passenger to alight from the car"). 
16 
 
justices attempt to lessen the weight of this factor by 
explaining that even on occasions when Paris was involved in 
criminal activity, he was polite and cooperative, suggesting 
that his behavior is no indication of whether he was engaged in 
criminal activity.  However, Paris had been cooperative and 
friendly even during field interrogations that did not result in 
criminal charges.  Additionally, as previously discussed, Fortes 
was a school resource officer and had known Paris for many 
years.  Fortes testified that, in all his encounters with Paris 
over the years, "[i]t's always been pretty much the same.  He's 
been respectful.  We've always had . . . a good rapport, him and 
I."  The officers observed that his behavior during this stop 
notably was different from his behavior during all past 
encounters.  Paris did not merely question the reason for the 
stop.  He became angry and uncooperative.  He took "a bladed 
stance," and appeared to be preparing to attack one officer.  
Even when one officer explained that the reason for the stop was 
a traffic violation, he refused to get back into the car.  These 
facts support our conclusion that the officers' inference that 
Paris was attempting to create a diversion objectively was 
reasonable.  See Commonwealth v. Jones, 83 Mass. App. Ct. 296, 
299-300 (2013).  Cf. United States v. Soares, 521 F.3d 117, 122 
(1st Cir. 2008) (defendant's "movements could easily be seen as 
an attempt to create a diversion and confusion amongst the 
17 
 
officers while he and the other passengers created an 
environment that was unsafe for the officers"). 
The facts discussed supra have a direct nexus both to Paris 
and to the other individuals in the car.  See Gomes, 453 Mass. 
at 513.  See also Narcisse, 457 Mass. at 12 ("neither the 
defendant nor his companion did anything that would arouse 
suspicion that criminal activity was 'afoot'").  Accordingly, 
there is nothing to suggest that the judge's findings were 
clearly erroneous or that he erred in concluding that it was 
reasonable for the officers to conclude that Paris's behavior at 
the time of this stop was unusual and was an attempt to divert 
the officers' attention from the vehicle and its contents. 
Generally, the acts of a suspect's companions are not 
enough to establish a reasonable suspicion without more, but 
they may be considered in assessing whether a reasonably prudent 
person would be warranted in concluding that a suspect may be 
armed and dangerous.  See Commonwealth v. Douglas, 472 Mass. 
439, 443 (2015) (defendant shifting automobile into "drive" 
during course of stop should be "considered in the totality of 
the circumstances and in light of other information known to the 
officers").  See also Vazquez, 426 Mass. at 103 ("We have upheld 
searches and orders for occupants to leave an automobile when, 
given other suspicious circumstances which justified a stop, an 
officer had no information whatsoever that a gun may have been 
18 
 
in the vehicle, but still had reason to be concerned with his 
and others' safety"); Commonwealth v. Wing Ng, 420 Mass. 236, 
239-241 (1995) (officers justified in pat frisking defendant 
during execution of warrant to arrest alleged criminal riding in 
defendant's vehicle despite defendant's cooperation with police 
during stop); Moses, 408 Mass. at 144 (officers can take 
reasonable precautions for their own protection that are 
"minimally necessary to learn whether the suspect is armed and 
to disarm him once the weapon is discovered" [citation 
omitted]); United States v. Rice, 483 F.3d 1079, 1085 (10th Cir. 
2007) ("A reasonable officer can infer from the behavior of one 
of a car's passengers a concern that reflects on the actions and 
motivations of the other passengers.  The backseat passenger's 
behavior could only heighten [the officer's] concern that this 
was anything but a routine traffic stop").  When objectively 
viewed in light of the information known to the officers, 
Paris's actions were one important factor that contributed to 
the officers' reasonable suspicion that the defendant may be 
armed and dangerous.  See Terry, 392 U.S. at 28 ("We cannot say 
[the officer's] decision at that point to seize [the defendant] 
and pat his clothing for weapons was the product of a volatile 
or inventive imagination, or was undertaken simply as an act of 
harassment; the record evidences the tempered act of [an 
officer] who in the course of an investigation had to make a 
19 
 
quick decision as to how to protect himself and others from 
possible danger, and took limited steps to do so"). 
Of course, the fact that a person has a criminal history is 
not "suspicious" automatically and at a certain point the effect 
of a previous conviction carries no weight in a reasonable 
suspicion analysis.  However, in appropriate circumstances, it 
is a factor that may be considered.  The circumstances of this 
stop warranted consideration of the passengers' criminal 
history.  As earlier mentioned, two of the officers had been 
involved in an incident approximately eighteen months earlier in 
which Paris had been arrested on two firearms-related charges.  
Officers had information that the back seat passenger, Cortes, 
had posted pictures of a firearm on social media within the last 
month.  Finally, officers were aware that the defendant had a 
three year old juvenile adjudication for an offense involving a 
firearm. 
The defendant's relevant criminal history is relatively 
remote in time; however, an individual's criminal history may 
weigh more heavily in the analysis if it involves an offense 
close to the conduct at issue.  Although the initial stop 
resulted from a traffic violation, officers quickly became 
concerned that there may be a firearm in the vehicle.  The 
defendant's prior adjudication, and the other male passengers' 
previous interactions with law enforcement, all involved 
20 
 
firearms.  See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Mendez, 476 Mass. 512, 518 
n.7 (2017).  Alone, this evidence of the defendant's criminal 
record would not be sufficient to establish reasonable suspicion 
that the defendant may be armed and dangerous.  See United 
States v. Torres, 987 F.3d 893, 904 (10th Cir. 2021), citing 
United States v. Hammond, 890 F.3d 901, 906–907 (10th Cir.), 
cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 390 (2018).  However, the dissenting 
justices do not give this factor sufficient weight in the 
context of the totality of the circumstances. 
Additionally, evidence of gang membership may be considered 
as a factor in the determination of reasonable suspicion, 
although, standing alone, it does not necessarily support a 
reasonable suspicion that a person may be armed and dangerous.  
This is especially true where, as here, the Commonwealth 
introduced no evidence regarding any known or ongoing gang 
violence in the area of the stop, police were not investigating 
gang-related crime when they initiated the traffic stop, and the 
Commonwealth did not link any efforts by Paris to distract the 
officers from the vehicle and its contents to any gang activity. 
Nonetheless, "where . . . the circumstances of the stop 
itself interact with an individual's criminal history to trigger 
an officer's suspicions, that criminal history becomes 
critically relevant for Terry-purposes."  Torres, 987 F.3d at 
904, quoting Hammond, 890 F.3d at 907.  Paris was known to the 
21 
 
gang unit officers as a member of both the United Front and 
Bloods gangs.  The officers also were aware that the defendant 
"was validated as a Blood gang member" and that Cortes was a 
member of a gang in Fall River.  The passengers' gang 
affiliations, combined with their previous involvement with 
firearms, are a factor that must be considered in the context of 
the totality of the circumstances analysis. 
Finally, the fact that the stop occurred in a high crime 
area is a factor in the reasonable suspicion calculus, albeit 
one that contributes minimally.  Although this factor should be 
given minimal weight, Justice Gaziano, in his dissent, see post 
at    , places too much focus on the fact that location alone 
does not suggest that the defendant may be armed and dangerous 
without considering the factor in the totality of the 
circumstances.  See Narcisse, 457 Mass. at 13.  See also 
DePeiza, 449 Mass. at 372 ("judge appropriately considered the 
high crime setting of the encounter, together with other 
factors, to conclude that the officers had reasonable suspicion 
that the defendant was committing a crime").  Much of the 
judge's findings regarding the high crime area related to the 
fact that Paris's previous firearm arrest took place 
approximately one-half mile away from the location of this stop.  
In considering the high crime area, the judge also noted that 
22 
 
the stop occurred in a location known to be United Front gang 
territory.9 
The dissents emphasize that the defendant was cooperative 
and sat quietly in the vehicle before the exit order and the 
patfrisk.  The dissenting justices suggest that because the 
defendant's conduct itself did not give rise to a reasonable 
suspicion, the other factors previously discussed, when 
considered as a whole, did not amount to specific articulable 
facts that the defendant might be armed and dangerous.  "[T]he 
frisk of a person is constitutionally permissible if the 
arresting officer can point to specific, articulable facts that 
warrant a reasonable suspicion that the particular individual 
might be armed and a potential threat to the safety of the 
officer or others" (emphasis added).  Wing Ng, 420 Mass. at 237.  
It is entirely possible that even where a defendant did not him- 
or herself behave in a suspicious manner at the time of the 
stop, other factors, including a companion's behavior, might be 
sufficient in light of the other factors to create specific, 
articulable facts that warrant a reasonable suspicion that the 
defendant may be armed and dangerous. 
 
9 Specifically, the judge found that the "United Front 
Housing Development" was located near the point of the stop at 
issue in this case.  The housing development was actually called 
"United Front Homes"; however, in 2011, it was renamed "Temple 
Landing." 
23 
 
As discussed supra, although "mere propinquity" is 
insufficient, Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 91 (1979), "[a] 
suspect's companionship with or propinquity to an individual 
independently suspected of criminal activity is a factor to be 
considered in assessing the reasonableness of a seizure," United 
States v. Silva, 957 F.2d 157, 161 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 506 
U.S. 887 (1992).  See United States v. Bell, 762 F.2d 495, 500-
502 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 853 (1985), citing United 
States v. Sink, 586 F.2d 1041, 1047-1048 (5th Cir. 1978), cert. 
denied, 443 U.S. 912 (1979) (patfrisk of defendant justified 
where defendant in car with individual known to be potentially 
armed and dangerous, defendant could not be ruled out as that 
individual's accomplice in previous incident, vehicle was parked 
in relatively crowded place, and defendant was noncompliant with 
officer's commands).  To conclude, as the dissents imply we 
should, that every factor must be particularized directly to the 
conduct of the defendant at the time of the stop would defeat 
the purpose of the totality of the circumstances analysis.  
Furthermore, there is no doubt that the defendant's prior 
firearm adjudication and his known gang membership are 
sufficiently particularized to the defendant, even under the 
dissent's narrow interpretation of the requirement. 
We must be careful not to overstate the distinction between 
the factors that justify an exit order and the factors that 
24 
 
justify a patfrisk.  The standard required to justify a patfrisk 
is not the same as that which is required to justify an exit 
order, see Torres-Pagan, 484 Mass. 38–39; however, the factors 
that justify an exit order also may be part of the consideration 
in the patfrisk analysis.  The two standards are linked 
inextricably.  See Commonwealth v. Washington, 449 Mass. 476, 
482 (2007) ("under our State Constitution, neither an exit order 
nor a patfrisk can be justified unless a reasonably prudent 
[person] in the [officer's] position would be warranted in the 
belief that the safety of the police or that of other persons 
was in danger" [quotation and citation omitted]).  The defendant 
no longer challenges the exit order.  Although the patfrisk, 
unlike the exit order, requires that police "have a reasonable 
suspicion, based on specific articulable facts, that the suspect 
is armed and dangerous," the factors justifying an exit order 
are not necessarily insufficient to meet this standard.  See 
Torres-Pagan, supra.  Cf. Commonwealth v. Wilson, 441 Mass. 390, 
394-395 (2004) (same facts that justified stop established 
reasonable suspicion that defendant may be armed and dangerous). 
 
Both this court and the United States Supreme Court have 
recognized that "traffic stops are especially fraught with 
danger to police officers" (quotation and citation omitted).  
Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 330 (2009).  See Stampley, 437 
Mass. at 326, quoting Gonsalves, 429 Mass. at 665.  See also 
25 
 
Moses, 408 Mass. at 142 ("[W]hen approaching a stopped car, a 
police officer is to some degree impaired in seeing whether a 
person therein may be drawing a gun" [citation omitted]). 
This court is very concerned about the disparate impact 
automobile stops have on persons of color and the national 
statistics on the fatalities suffered by such communities at the 
hands of police officers.  See post at     (Lowy, J., 
concurring);     (Wendlandt, J., concurring);     (Budd, C.J., 
dissenting);     (Gaziano, J., dissenting).  "All too frequently 
. . . the prohibition against facially discriminatory laws has 
been inadequate to address the role played by racism and other 
invidious classifications in the way facially neutral laws 
actually are enforced."  Commonwealth v. Long, 485 Mass. 711, 
716 (2020).  See Commonwealth v. Evelyn, 485 Mass. 691, 701 
(2020).  In announcing the "stop and frisk" rule in Terry, the 
Supreme Court concluded that "it would be unreasonable to 
require that police officers take unnecessary risks in the 
performance of their duties."  Terry, 392 U.S. at 23.  
Similarly, this court has made clear that we do not require 
police "to accept the risk of [an objective] ambiguity."  
Commonwealth v. Johnson, 454 Mass. 159, 164 (2009). 
Balancing the constitutional rights of all motorists, the 
objective of public protection, and police officer safety is 
difficult under the best of circumstances.  In the context of a 
26 
 
quickly evolving traffic stop, it is particularly difficult.  We 
emphasize that the reasonable suspicion analysis is fact 
specific.  This case does not stand for the proposition that 
every occupant of a vehicle may be pat frisked after a legal 
exit order based only on the conduct of a companion.10  Here, the 
evidence established that police stopped the vehicle because of 
a traffic violation and did not, at that time, have reasonable 
suspicion that a crime had been committed or that any of the 
occupants of the vehicle were armed and dangerous.  However, 
once Paris got out of the vehicle and angrily confronted the 
officers, the nature of the stop changed.  Although this is a 
close case, Paris's erratic, uncharacteristic behavior, combined 
with the officers' knowledge of the three male passengers' prior 
involvement with firearms, their gang affiliations, and the high 
crime area in which the traffic stop occurred, and the fact that 
the officers were in jeopardy of losing control of the scene,11 
 
10 Whether the driver properly was pat frisked is not before 
us. 
 
11 In his dissent, Justice Gaziano concludes that the 
officers were no longer in jeopardy of losing control of the 
scene at the time the defendant was pat frisked because Paris 
was handcuffed and secured at the rear of the vehicle.  See post 
at    .  Detective Fortes stayed with Paris while the other 
officers approached the other occupants of the vehicle.  Only 
then did the officers recognize the other passengers of the 
vehicle to be gang affiliated and to have prior involvement with 
firearms.  Although Paris was handcuffed at the time, that did 
not change the fact that officers believed he had been 
attempting to distract them from criminal activity afoot in the 
27 
 
created a reasonable suspicion that the defendant might have 
been armed and dangerous. 
The denial of the defendant's motion to suppress is 
affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered. 
 
vehicle.  Furthermore, from the time Paris had gotten out of the 
car to the time the defendant was asked to get out of the car, 
only ninety seconds had elapsed. 
 
LOWY, J. (concurring).  I agree with all the important 
concerns that the dissents raise.  For example, there are issues 
of racial disparities in, and concerns about the of 
unreliability of, gang databases.  Alleged gang membership and 
prior gun offenses alone are insufficient bases to give rise to 
the reasonable suspicion needed to exercise a patfrisk.  In 
addition, the concerns raised by Chief Justice Budd regarding 
the impact of traffic stops on Black and brown people are 
serious ones that must be recognized and addressed. 
I differ with the dissents on whether the inference that 
Raekwan Paris was attempting to divert attention from the car 
was reasonable.  Since I believe that it was, I agree with the 
court's affirmance of the lower court's denial of the motion to 
suppress.  See, e.g., United States v. Soares, 521 F.3d 117, 122 
(1st Cir. 2008) (defendant's "movements could easily be seen as 
an attempt to create a diversion and confusion amongst the 
officers while he and the other passengers created an 
environment that was unsafe for the officers"); United States v. 
Rice, 483 F.3d 1079, 1085 (10th Cir. 2007) ("A reasonable 
officer can infer from the behavior of one of a car's passengers 
a concern that reflects on the actions and motivations of the 
other passengers.  The backseat passenger's behavior could only 
heighten [the officer's] concern that this was anything but a 
routine traffic stop"); United States vs. Goebel, U.S. Dist. 
 
 
 
2 
Ct., No. 18-CR-2752 KG (D.N.M. Nov. 15, 2018), report and 
recommendation adopted, No. 18-CR-2752 KG (D.N.M. Dec. 19, 
2018), aff'd, 959 F.3d 1259 (10th Cir. 2020) ("[Front seat 
passenger's] conduct lends further credence to [officer's] 
suspicion that the occupants of the car might be engaged in 
criminal activity.  After [officer] parked his car north of the 
driveway, [passenger] -- without [officer] asking -- exited the 
Lincoln and approached the patrol car to speak with [officer].  
[Officer] testified, 'From my previous experience with 
encounters with more than one suspect . . . when one suspect or 
one subject approaches an officer, it's sometimes to divert the 
attention away from somebody else on-scene. . . .  It's unusual 
for people to get out and come towards my car'"). 
The officers were entitled to rely on their training and 
familiarity with Paris in drawing this inference.  See, e.g., 
United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002) (reasonable 
suspicion determination "allows officers to draw on their own 
experience and specialized training to make inferences from and 
deductions about the cumulative information available to them 
that might well elude an untrained person" [quotation and 
citation omitted]); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968) ("We 
merely hold today that where a police officer observes unusual 
conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his 
experience that criminal activity may be afoot and that the 
 
 
 
3 
persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently 
dangerous, where in the course of investigating this behavior he 
identifies himself as a policeman and makes reasonable 
inquiries, and where nothing in the initial stages of the 
encounter serves to dispel his reasonable fear for his own or 
others' safety, he is entitled for the protection of himself and 
others in the area to conduct a carefully limited search of the 
outer clothing of such persons in an attempt to discover weapons 
which might be used to assault him"); United States v. Zambrana, 
428 F.3d 670, 677 (7th Cir. 2005) ("It goes without saying, of 
course, that, in assessing the evidence presented by law 
enforcement officers, a district court should be mindful of the 
officers' experience, their training and the pressure-filled 
circumstances under which they fulfill their duties"). 
 
Because in my view the officers' inference that Paris was 
intentionally creating a distraction from weapons in the car or 
on the persons of the other occupants was reasonable, the motion 
judge's adoption of that inference was not clearly erroneous.  I 
therefore agree with the court that, in the totality of the 
circumstances, there was reasonable suspicion that the defendant 
was armed and dangerous.  I respectfully concur. 
 
WENDLANDT, J. (concurring).  As the studies and statistics 
cited by Chief Justice Budd in her dissent and by others 
indisputably show, there are racial disparities in the criminal 
justice system, including in who is stopped, who is pat frisked, 
and who is incarcerated.1  The disparities are both stark and 
unacceptable.  But today's decision does not allow officers to 
stop and pat frisk drivers or passengers simply because they are 
Black or brown, and today's decision does not rest on 
stereotypes.  It neither solves systematic racism nor 
contributes to it.  Indeed, the defendant does not contend that 
the traffic stop at issue was motivated by racial profiling or 
discrimination, see Commonwealth v. Long, 485 Mass. 711, 713 
(2020); and, on appeal before this court, he no longer presses 
the issue whether the police officers' order that he exit the 
vehicle was grounded in a reasonable fear for officers' safety, 
see Commonwealth v. Gonsalves, 429 Mass. 658, 662-663 (1999).  
Instead, today we are called upon only to apply, to the rapidly 
evolving events of this case, the familiar test set forth by the 
United States Supreme Court in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27 
(1968), and repeated recently by this court in Commonwealth v. 
 
1 See, e.g., E.T. Bishop, B. Hopkins, C. Obiofuma, F. Owusu, 
Criminal Justice Policy Program at Harvard Law School, Racial 
Disparities in the Massachusetts Criminal System (Sept. 2020); 
Fagan, Braga, Brunson, & Pattavina, Stops and Stares:  Street 
Stops, Surveillance, and Race in the New Policing, 43 Fordham 
Urb. L.J. 539, 540, 598 (2016). 
 
 
 
2 
Torres-Pagan, 484 Mass. 34, 37 (2020), that an officer may not 
pat frisk an individual unless the officer has reasonable 
suspicion, based on specific articulable facts, that the 
individual is dangerous and may have a weapon.  See Commonwealth 
v. Wing Ng, 420 Mass. 236, 237, 239 (1995) (permissibility of 
patfrisk under Federal and State constitution governed by same 
standard). 
In our application, we are guided by the principle that 
reasonable suspicion to conduct a patfrisk exists where, based 
on the totality of the circumstances, see Commonwealth v. 
Fraser, 410 Mass. 541, 545 (1991), including the officers' 
training and experience, see Commonwealth v. DePeiza, 449 Mass. 
367, 373 (2007),2 a reasonably prudent person would be warranted 
in the belief that the suspected individual is armed and 
dangerous, see Terry, 392 U.S. at 27; Commonwealth v. Narcisse, 
457 Mass. 1, 7 (2010).  Reasonable suspicion deals with degrees 
of likelihood; it "is not a requirement of absolute certainty."  
New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 346 (1985).  It requires 
more than an "inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 
 
2 "[W]e appropriately grant respect to the ability of 
trained and experienced police officers to draw from the 
attendant circumstances inferences that would 'elude an 
untrained person'" (footnote omitted).  United States v. Tiru-
Plaza, 766 F.3d 111, 116 (1st Cir. 2014), cert. denied, 575 U.S. 
952 (2015), quoting United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 418 
(1981). 
 
 
 
3 
'hunch,'" Terry, supra, but it is a less exacting requirement 
than probable cause, which itself requires only "a fair 
probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be 
found," United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989), quoting 
Illinois v. Gates, 426 U.S. 213, 238 (1983).  Ultimately, 
reasonable suspicion is "a pragmatic inquiry –- one that 'must 
be based on commonsense judgments and inferences about human 
behavior.'"  United States v. Tiru-Plaza, 766 F.3d 111, 121-122 
(1st Cir. 2014), cert. denied, 575 U.S. 952 (2015), quoting 
Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 125 (2000).  See Ornelas v. 
United States, 517 U.S. 690, 695 (1996) (reasonable suspicion is 
"commonsense, nontechnical" conception dealing with "the factual 
and practical considerations of everyday life" [citation 
omitted]). 
 
The specific articulable facts in this case are not 
hunches, speculations, or mere beliefs.  They are instead as 
follows.  Officers stopped a vehicle in which the defendant was 
a rear seat passenger after it cut off another vehicle, causing 
the latter vehicle abruptly to slam on its brakes.  Within 
ninety seconds, the routine traffic stop transformed. 
Before officers could approach the stopped vehicle to issue 
a civil citation for the traffic violation, Raekwan Paris, the 
front seat passenger, stepped out of the vehicle, flailing his 
arms, pacing away from the vehicle, and refusing to obey one of 
 
 
 
4 
the officers' commands that he return to the vehicle.  He 
continued to step away from the vehicle, an act reminiscent of 
his conduct eighteen months earlier during which two of the same 
three officers present here saw him walking away from a vehicle 
in which a firearm was found.  Charges from that incident were 
pending at the time of this stop. 
The officers, one of whom had known Paris for many years 
and since Paris was a "young kid", observed that Paris's erratic 
behavior not only was unusual, but also was unusually combative, 
even after officers had assured him that the reason for the stop 
was a traffic violation.  Despite this explanation, Paris 
escalated his conduct, clenched his fists, and assumed a 
fighting stance toward the one officer whom he had known for 
years and with whom he ordinarily had a "good rapport."  Far 
from protesting continued harassment at the hands of police, the 
officers believed (reasonably so) that Paris was actively 
creating a distraction from the vehicle.  See Terry, 392 U.S. at 
27 (reasonable suspicion does not require absolute certainty).3 
 
3 Importantly, as the court notes, ante at    , this case 
does not authorize officers automatically to pat frisk an 
individual based solely on the actions of the individual's 
companion.  See Wing Ng, 420 Mass. at 237-238 (police do not 
have automatic right to pat frisk companion of lawfully arrested 
individual).  See also United States v. I.E.V., 705 F.3d 430, 
438 (9th Cir. 2012) (driver's "fidgety" behavior, without more, 
not enough to justify patfrisk of passenger); United States v. 
Wilson, 506 F.3d 488, 495 (6th Cir. 2007) (driver's "undeniably 
 
 
 
5 
The distraction worked, at least temporarily.  It was not 
until after Paris had drawn the attention of all three officers 
and had been handcuffed that the officers could attend to the 
validly stopped vehicle and its remaining occupants. 
The officers found in the rear passenger compartment of the 
vehicle two other individuals.  Each, like Paris, had engaged in 
either recent or remote firearms-related conduct.  The officers 
knew that one passenger recently had been seen in a video 
recording holding what appeared to be a real firearm; 
additionally, one of the officers knew that the other passenger, 
the defendant, had a three year old juvenile adjudication for an 
offense involving a firearm.  And, as mentioned, the officers 
 
suspicious" behavior, without more, not enough to justify 
patfrisk of passenger). 
 
However, a companion's actions cannot be ignored when 
conducting the totality of the circumstances analysis required 
by the reasonable suspicion standard.  See Wing Ng, 420 Mass. at 
241; United States v. Flett, 806 F.2d 823, 827 (8th Cir. 1986); 
United States v. Bell, 762 F.2d 495, 500 (6th Cir.), cert. 
denied, 474 U.S. 853 (1985).  See also Tiru-Plaza, 766 F.3d at 
121 (following traffic stop, discovery of firearm concealed in 
driver's waistband supported reasonable suspicion to pat frisk 
passenger); United States v. Lyons, 733 F.3d 777, 780 (7th Cir. 
2013), cert. denied, 572 U.S. 1041 (2014) (driver's two recent 
firearms arrests, as well as his decision to drive through red 
light after police activated lights, supported reasonable 
suspicion to pat frisk passenger); United States v. Rice, 483 
F.3d 1079, 1085 (10th Cir. 2007) (behavior of one passenger can 
reflect on actions or motivations of other passengers); United 
States v. Dardy, 128 F. Supp. 3d 400, 411 (D. Mass. 2015) 
(flight of one passenger can inform officer's assessment of 
threat posed by remaining passengers). 
 
 
 
6 
knew that Paris had been arrested on firearms charges just 
eighteen months earlier and was currently out on bail awaiting 
trial. 
In addition to the reasonable inference that Paris was 
distracting the officers from what lay in the vehicle and that 
the distraction regarded a firearm, the officers also knew, 
based on their years of training and experience,4 and their 
knowledge of these particular individuals, that each of the 
three passengers had gang affiliations and that Paris and the 
defendant belonged to the same gang.5  Moreover, the stop took 
 
4 The officers had approximately thirty-eight years of 
collective experience as police officers in New Bedford, 
including ten years of collective experience in the gang unit of 
the New Bedford police department. 
 
5 While I recognize that research has shown that gang lists 
held by police departments may be overly inclusive, racially 
biased, or otherwise mistaken, see Blitzer, How Gang Victims Are 
Labelled as Gang Suspects, New Yorker (Jan. 23, 2018), https:// 
www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-gang-victims-are-labelled-
as-gang-suspects [https://perma.cc/V64R-VTDN]; Citizens for 
Juvenile Justice, We Are the Prey:  Racial Profiling and 
Policing of Youth in New Bedford (Apr. 2021), https://www.cfjj 
.org/s/We-Are-The-Prey-FINAL.pdf [https://perma.cc/F522-2RVJ]; 
Dumke, ProPublica, Chicago's Gang Database Is Full of Errors -- 
And Records We Have Prove It (Apr. 19, 2018), https://www 
.propublica.org/article/politic-il-insider-chicago-gang-database 
[https://perma.cc/55KV-55ZV], this is not a case where the 
defendant was either misidentified as a gang member or 
identified as a gang member based solely on his race.  Indeed, 
the defendant's race is not in the record before us.  Moreover, 
the officers collectively had multiple encounters with the 
defendant, and one of the officers had known him for years.  One 
of the officers testified that he knew the defendant "from being 
around," that the defendant was "[a]ssociated" with other 
parties with whom the officer had spoken, and that he knew that 
 
 
 
7 
place in a high-crime area,6 within one-half mile of the location 
where Paris had been arrested eighteen months earlier for the 
aforementioned firearms charges.  These facts, while seemingly 
innocuous in isolation, when taken together, and considering 
that they transpired within one minute and thirty seconds, 
warranted a reasonably prudent person's belief that the 
defendant was armed and dangerous. 
 
the defendant was a "Blood" gang member.  Another officer 
testified that he previously had encountered the defendant 
around a particular area of New Bedford and that he too knew 
that the defendant had ties to the Bloods gang.  The third 
officer testified, moreover, that the defendant was a 
"validated" Bloods gang member; the defendant had been seen in 
pictures demonstrating well-known, documented Bloods gang hand 
signs and wearing red bandanas, as well as in pictures with 
other Bloods gang members.  In fact, after the defendant was 
arrested, the defendant acknowledged his membership in the 
Bloods gang. 
 
6 See Commonwealth v. Gomes, 453 Mass. 506, 512 (2009) ("We 
caution that while the character of a neighborhood as a high 
crime area can be considered as part of the aggregate 
circumstances that provide reasonable suspicion to justify a 
protective frisk, this factor must be considered with some 
caution because many honest, law-abiding citizens live and work 
in high-crime areas.  Those citizens are entitled to the 
protections of the Federal and State Constitutions, despite the 
character of the area" [quotation and citations omitted]). 
BUDD, C.J. (dissenting).  A Black man got out of a vehicle 
that had just been pulled over for a traffic infraction.  
Despite the officers' orders to return to the vehicle, the man, 
Raekwan Paris, paced back and forth while flailing his arms, 
clenching his fists, and accusing the officers of harassment.  
Consequently, the officers placed Paris in handcuffs.  They then 
pat frisked each of the vehicle's three other occupants (among 
them, the defendant here), none of whom had done anything on 
this night to arouse the officers' suspicions. 
The court holds that the patfrisk of the defendant was 
constitutional because the officers had developed a reasonable 
suspicion that the defendant was armed following Paris's 
behavior.  I believe that this decision, by deeming the 
officers' suspicion here objectively reasonable, allows for an 
encroachment upon an individual's right to be free from 
unreasonable search and seizure provided for in both art. 14 of 
the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights and the Fourth Amendment 
to the United States Constitution.  I therefore dissent. 
1.  The standard.  A patfrisk constitutionally is 
"permissible only where an officer has reasonable suspicion that 
the suspect is armed and dangerous."  Commonwealth v. Torres-
Pagan, 484 Mass. 34, 36 (2020), citing Arizona v. Johnson, 555 
U.S. 323, 326-327 (2009), and Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27 
(1968).  "Reasonable suspicion is measured by an objective 
 
 
 
2 
standard . . . ."  Commonwealth v. Meneus, 476 Mass. 231, 235 
(2017).  That is, an officer's belief qualifies as a reasonable 
suspicion where that belief arises from objectively reasonable 
inferences drawn from specific facts.  See Terry, supra at 21 
("it is imperative that the facts be judged against an objective 
standard"); Commonwealth v. DePeiza, 449 Mass. 367, 371 (2007). 
An inference is objectively reasonable where either it is 
based on an officer's special training or personal experience, 
see United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002), or it is 
a matter of commonsense judgment, see Kansas v. Glover, 140 S. 
Ct. 1183, 1189-1190 (2020); Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 
125 (2000).  Conversely, where what an officer infers merely has 
some conceivable connection to the facts before the officer, 
that inference is pure speculation and cannot justify a 
patfrisk.  See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Villagran, 477 Mass. 711, 
718 (2017); Commonwealth v. Martin, 457 Mass. 14, 20-21 (2010); 
Commonwealth v. Gomes, 453 Mass. 506, 507-508, 513-514 (2009).  
See also Terry, 392 U.S. at 28 (officer's suspicion that person 
is armed must be more than "the product of a volatile or 
inventive imagination"). 
2.  Application.  The conduct that precipitated the 
defendant's patfrisk is as follows.1  The defendant, his 
 
1 The officers testified that, but for Paris's conduct, 
described infra, they would not have conducted the patfrisks. 
 
 
 
3 
companion Paris, and a third male were passengers in a vehicle 
that made an improper lane change.  Officers activated their 
lights and followed the vehicle into the parking lot of a fast 
food restaurant.  Paris stepped out of the vehicle and refused 
to step back inside, despite the officers' orders to do so.  He 
appeared angry and, with a raised voice, questioned the reason 
for the stop and accused the officers of harassing him.  Paris 
stood "with one foot slightly in front of the other" and his 
fists clenched, which made the officers concerned that he was 
going to throw a punch.  He "flailed his arms a few times" and 
paced back and forth, walking away from the vehicle and back.  
In response, the officers handcuffed Paris, after which Paris 
continued to talk about the legality of the stop and to question 
why the officers had stopped him.  These events transpired in 
less than ninety seconds. 
From this behavior, interpreted in light of the location of 
the stop and the suspected gang affiliations and histories of 
weapon possession of the vehicle's three male occupants, the 
officers inferred that Paris intended to distract the officers 
from the vehicle.  They further inferred that the reason that he 
sought to do so was because there was contraband in the vehicle, 
that the contraband was a weapon, and that the weapon might be 
on the defendant's person. 
 
 
 
4 
The court concludes that it was reasonable, given the 
totality of the circumstances, to infer from Paris's behavior 
that he sought to distract the officers from the vehicle in 
order to prevent them from discovering a weapon therein.  
However, because this inference was grounded in pure speculation 
rather than the officers' training, experience, or commonsense 
judgment, it objectively was not reasonable.  Contrast Glover, 
140 S. Ct. at 1189-1190; Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273; Wardlow, 528 
U.S. at 125. 
The officers did not testify that they had received any 
training that informed the inference that they drew from Paris's 
behavior.  Contrast Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273; DePeiza, 449 Mass. 
at 373.  And although the officers testified that they were 
familiar with Paris, they likewise described no experiences with 
him that would support the reasonableness of inferring from his 
behavior that there was a weapon in the vehicle.  The officers 
testified that Paris generally had been cooperative and cordial 
whenever they had previously encountered him.  They also 
testified as to one specific encounter with Paris that resulted 
in the recovery of a firearm.  During that encounter, Paris 
obeyed the officers' instructions and made no attempt to 
distract them from the vehicle in which he had been despite 
 
 
 
5 
knowing that it contained a firearm.2  Thus, because the officers 
previously had never experienced Paris either acting 
confrontationally or attempting to distract them from hidden 
contraband, their past experiences with Paris provided no basis 
for them to infer that his confrontational behavior here was an 
attempt to distract them from the vehicle because it contained a 
firearm. 
As for common sense, it cannot seriously be maintained that 
it was simply a matter of common sense to interpret Paris's 
behavior as a ruse to draw the officers' attention away from the 
vehicle in order to avoid their detection of a firearm hidden 
therein.  A commonsense inference is one that "does not require 
any specialized training" but rather "is a reasonable inference 
made by ordinary people on a daily basis."  Glover, 140 S. Ct. 
at 1189 (considering it common sense to infer "that the driver 
of a car is its registered owner").  An ordinary, reasonable 
person would not interpret Paris's "uncharacteristic" behavior 
as such a ruse,3 especially in light of the alternative, 
 
2 See Commonwealth v. Paris, 97 Mass. App. Ct. 785, 786-788 
(2020) (describing this previous encounter and determining that 
officers had lacked reasonable suspicion at that time to stop 
Paris).  It is ironic that the court relies upon the fruits of 
an unconstitutional stop to support the constitutionality of the 
patfrisk in this case. 
 
3 That officers perceived his behavior as "uncharacteristic" 
on this occasion is of no moment -- it is not difficult to 
 
 
 
6 
straightforward explanation that Paris contemporaneously 
provided for this behavior:  his belief that the police were 
harassing him and that the stop was unfair.  Given the well-
documented history of the role that racial profiling plays in 
traffic stops throughout this country,4 a Black man's expression 
of frustration at being stopped for a lane-change violation is 
readily comprehensible.  Cf. Mandala v. NTT Data, Inc., 988 F.3d 
664, 669 (2d Cir. 2021) (Pooler, J., dissenting) ("Most 
Americans understand that the criminal justice system has quite 
clear racial biases that create disparate outcomes for [B]lack 
Americans").  To conclude that the commonsense judgment here was 
that Paris was feigning frustration at being stopped as a 
tactical maneuver to distract the officers from hidden 
 
imagine that a Black person may eventually express frustration 
at perceived racial profiling. 
 
4 See, e.g., Fagan, Braga, Brunson, & Pattavina, Stops and 
Stares:  Street Stops, Surveillance, and Race in the New 
Policing, 43 Fordham Urb. L.J. 539, 540 (2016) ("Minority 
neighborhoods [in Boston] experience higher levels of field 
interrogation and surveillance activity, controlling for crime 
and other social factors.  Relative to [w]hite suspects, Black 
suspects are more likely to be observed, interrogated, and 
frisked or searched controlling for gang membership and prior 
arrest history"); Hetey, Monin, Maitreyi, & Eberhardt, Data for 
Change:  A Statistical Analysis of Police Stops, Searches, 
Handcuffings, and Arrests in Oakland, Calif., 2013-2014, 
Stanford University, SPARQ:  Social Psychological Answers to 
Real-World Questions, at 10 (2016) (after controlling for 
various factors, finding that Oakland police stop, search, 
handcuff, or arrest Black people at higher rates than white 
people). 
 
 
 
7 
contraband is to not only ignore the reality of race-based 
policing, but also perpetuate it.  See Commonwealth v. Evelyn, 
485 Mass. 691, 708 (2020) ("long history of race-based policing 
likely will remain imprinted on the group and individual 
consciousness of African-Americans for the foreseeable future"). 
Nor is this inference transformed into a commonsense 
judgment when the totality of the circumstances is considered.  
First, the court concedes that the location of the stop deserves 
minimal weight in the officer's reasonable suspicion calculus.  
I agree.  This is the case even though Paris was arrested for 
unlawful firearm possession several blocks from the fast food 
restaurant parking lot where the stop occurred and even though 
this location is near the housing development associated with 
Paris's gang.  Neither aspect of this location made it a 
commonsense judgment (when, as explained supra, it otherwise was 
not) to interpret Paris's behavior as a ruse to distract the 
officers from a hidden firearm. 
Second, the three male occupants' histories of firearm 
possession and suspected gang affiliations similarly do not 
transform into a commonsense judgment the inference from Paris's 
behavior to the defendant's weapon possession.  The court 
disagrees because, in its view, the circumstances of this stop 
"interact with" these factors, making them "critically relevant" 
to the officers' suspicion that the defendant was armed.  Ante 
 
 
 
8 
at    .  See United States v. Torres, 987 F.3d 893, 904 (10th 
Cir. 2021), quoting United States v. Hammond, 890 F.3d 901, 907 
(10th Cir.), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 390 (2018).  I do not see 
how this is so. 
A person's suspected gang affiliation or criminal history 
is minimally relevant on its own.  See Commonwealth v. Elysee, 
77 Mass. App. Ct. 833, 841 (2010) ("gang membership alone does 
not provide reasonable suspicion").  Cf. United States v. 
Mathurin, 561 F.3d 170, 177 (3d Cir. 2009) ("a past criminal 
conviction, never mind an arrest record, is not sufficient alone 
for reasonable suspicion" for investigatory stop).  But these 
factors may significantly contribute to an officer's suspicion 
that a person is armed where there is a connection between the 
person's gang affiliation or criminal history and the 
circumstances of the particular stop.  See Hammond, 890 F.3d at 
907. 
In Hammond, for example, the fact that the defendant was "a 
gang member who had recently been arrested for weapons 
possession" interacted with the fact that, at the time that the 
defendant was stopped and frisked, he was "wearing colors 
commonly associated with [his] gang" and "there was a feud 
ongoing" between his gang and a rival gang.  Id.  Likewise, in 
Torres, 987 F.3d at 905, the defendant not only was believed to 
be a gang member but also had "recently refused to cooperate 
 
 
 
9 
with the police after being shot" in a gang-related incident.  
Because the defendant's suspected gang affiliation interacted 
with this recent occurrence, the United States Court of Appeals 
for the Tenth Circuit determined that "the police could 
reasonably infer" that the defendant may have been carrying a 
gun for protection at the time that he was stopped and frisked.  
Id. at 904.  The reasonableness of the officers' inference that 
the defendant may have been armed was bolstered by the fact that 
the police had, just prior to the stop, observed him "drive[] 
[his] passenger to a place where she had tried to buy heroin."  
Id. at 904-905.  In contrast, here, nothing about the male 
companions' suspected gang affiliations or histories of firearm 
possession "interacted with" Paris's behavior such that either 
of these factors should have significantly contributed to the 
officers' suspicion that the defendant was armed given that 
behavior. 
Because none of the prior incidents of firearm possession 
known to the officers involved conduct similar to Paris's during 
this traffic stop, those prior incidents provided no reason for 
the officers to understand Paris's behavior as an indication 
that a firearm was in the vehicle.  Cf. Commonwealth v. Cordero, 
477 Mass. 237, 239, 244, 246 (2017) (motorist's prior 
convictions for drug offenses did not make it reasonable for 
officer to interpret motorist's evasive answers about his 
 
 
 
10 
travels as indication of his engagement in illegal drug 
activity).5  Although the officers' knowledge of the companions' 
histories of firearm possession may have rationally predisposed 
the officers to suspect that the companions might be armed, 
whatever the circumstances in which the officers encountered 
them, see, e.g., Commonwealth v. Mendez, 476 Mass. 512, 518 n.7 
(2017), this knowledge did not make it any more reasonable for 
the officers to infer from Paris's behavior that the defendant 
was armed. 
The companions' suspected gang affiliations similarly do 
not interact with Paris's behavior so as to render any more 
reasonable the officers' inference from that behavior to the 
defendant's weapon possession.  Although the officers' knowledge 
of the companions' gang affiliations likewise may have 
 
5 The court errs when it additionally includes as a relevant 
similarity between the male occupants' histories of firearm 
possession and the conduct at issue here the fact that this 
challenged patfrisk revealed that the defendant had a firearm.  
Because the officers only learned that the defendant possessed a 
firearm after they pat frisked him, that possession cannot 
justify their decision to conduct the patfrisk.  See 
Commonwealth v. Gentile, 466 Mass. 817, 826 (2014) ("our 
analysis of reasonable belief must not be influenced by what was 
learned after" challenged search). 
 
To the extent that the court means to include as a relevant 
similarity between the male occupants' histories of weapon 
possession and the facts of this case that the officers here 
suspected (prior to the patfrisk) that the defendant was armed, 
that would problematically beg the ultimate question of this 
appeal. 
 
 
 
11 
rationally predisposed them to suspect that the companions might 
be armed, whatever the circumstances in which the officers 
encountered them, this knowledge did not make it any more 
reasonable for the officers to infer from Paris's behavior that 
the defendant was armed.  Nothing about Paris's behavior 
suggested gang activity, nor did the officers otherwise suspect 
that any gang activity was ongoing.  Compare State v. Abel, 68 
A.3d 1228, 1238 (Del. 2012) (defendant's gang affiliation did 
"not support a finding of reasonable, articulable suspicion that 
[defendant] was armed and dangerous" where "[officer] was aware 
of no facts that indicated gang activity was occurring nearby").  
Contrast Torres, 987 F.3d at 905; Hammond, 890 F.3d at 907. 
Thus, even considering the location of the stop and the 
histories of firearm possession and gang affiliations of the 
three male companions, it was not common sense to infer from 
Paris's behavior that the defendant was armed.6  Compare Cordero, 
 
6 Justice Lowy disagrees.  See ante at    .  However, in 
none of the cases that he cites did a court determine that an 
officer reasonably interpreted behavior like Paris's as a 
distraction from a hidden weapon in the absence of any other 
conduct directly leading up to or during the stop that suggested 
that a weapon was on the scene.  See United States v. Soares, 
521 F.3d 117, 118, 120-121 (1st Cir. 2008) (defendant made 
unusual, furtive movements that suggested weapon concealment and 
disobeyed orders to keep hands still and in sight); United 
States v. Rice, 483 F.3d 1079, 1081, 1084 (10th Cir. 2007) 
("Based on the time of night [(2:30 A.M.)] and the unusual 
driving pattern, [officer] suspected [vehicle's] occupants might 
be preparing for a burglary or drive-by shooting," and "computer 
check identified [occupant] as 'known to be armed and 
 
 
 
12 
477 Mass. at 244-247 (even considering that motorist was 
traveling from "drug 'source city'" and that motorist had prior 
convictions for drug offenses, officer's suspicion that motorist 
was engaged in illegal drug activity because of motorist's 
evasive answers about his travels was not reasonable). 
Because the officers' inference from Paris's behavior to 
the defendant's weapon possession did not result from their 
training and experiences, contrast Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273; 
DePeiza, 449 Mass. at 373, nor from the application of 
commonsense judgment, contrast Glover, 140 S. Ct. at 1189-1190, 
that inference was not objectively reasonable and therefore did 
not properly contribute to the officer's suspicion that the 
defendant was armed,7 see DePeiza, supra at 371. 
This conclusion is bolstered by the fact that the 
inferential leap from Paris's behavior to the defendant's weapon 
possession is unlike any that we have previously accepted as 
 
dangerous'"); United States vs. Goebel, U.S. Dist. Ct., No. 18-
CR-2752 KG (D.N.M. Nov. 15, 2018), report and recommendation 
adopted, No. 18-CR-2752 KG (D.N.M. Dec. 19, 2018), aff'd, 959 
F.3d 1259 (10th Cir. 2020) ("[officer] found it suspicious that 
at [2:45 A.M.], in an area . . . known for high crime rates, 
with the vehicle parked askew, [defendant] bypassed the home's 
front door and entered the back yard through a closed gate"). 
 
7 Once Paris was handcuffed, the safety concerns directly 
presented by his behavior dissipated.  Thus, after Paris was 
handcuffed, the officers were not justified in pat frisking each 
one of the vehicle's occupants on the ground that Paris's 
behavior had been aggressive. 
 
 
 
13 
objectively reasonable support for an officer's suspicion that a 
suspect is armed.  Heretofore we have held that an officer had 
reasonable suspicion that a defendant was armed where the 
defendant's movements directly suggested that the defendant was 
carrying, concealing, or reaching for a weapon.  See, e.g., 
Commonwealth v. Goewey, 452 Mass. 399, 407 (2008) (defendant 
appeared to "hide or retrieve something"); DePeiza, 449 Mass. at 
373 (defendant walked with "straight arm" gait and attempted to 
hide pocket from view); Commonwealth v. Stampley, 437 Mass. 323, 
327 (2002) (defendant appeared to reach for object on floor of 
vehicle); Commonwealth v. Fraser, 410 Mass. 541, 545-546 (1991) 
(defendant appeared to "pick[] something up or put[] something 
down, and then . . . confronted the officer with his hands in 
his pockets"); Commonwealth v. Silva, 366 Mass. 402, 407 (1974) 
("Most important of all, the defendant made a gesture as if to 
conceal something in his automobile and one of the officers 
thought it was a gun").  Cf. Torres-Pagan, 484 Mass. at 39 
(patfrisk unjustified where defendant "was not secreting 
anything, nor was he attempting to reach for anything"). 
Where an individual has not made any movements directly 
suggesting that he or she was carrying, concealing, or reaching 
for a weapon, we nevertheless have determined that an officer 
had reasonable suspicion to pat frisk that individual for 
weapons where the officer had preexisting suspicion that the 
 
 
 
14 
individual was a participant in recent or ongoing violent 
criminal activity.  See Commonwealth v. Douglas, 472 Mass. 439, 
441, 446 (2015) (defendant had been under surveillance by police 
for potential involvement in ongoing violence between rival 
groups); Commonwealth v. Wing Ng, 420 Mass. 236, 240-241 (1995) 
(defendant suspected to have participated in armed home invasion 
that occurred one week prior). 
This case involves neither scenario.  The officers did not 
observe any of the vehicle's occupants move in a manner 
suggesting that they were carrying, concealing, or reaching for 
a weapon.  See Torres-Pagan, 484 Mass. at 39.  Nor did the 
officers have suspicion prior to initiating the stop that any of 
the occupants were engaging in, or recently had engaged in, 
violent criminal activity.  Contrast Douglas, 472 Mass. at 446; 
Wing Ng, 420 Mass. at 240-241. 
In short, without Paris's behavior, the officers, per their 
own admission, would have lacked reasonable suspicion to pat 
frisk the defendant.  But as explained supra, this behavior did 
not give rise to an objectively reasonable inference that the 
defendant was armed.  The inferences that the officers drew from 
Paris's behavior and that led the officers to conclude that the 
defendant may have been armed were the product of pure 
speculation rather than of training, experience, or common 
sense.  The patfrisk was accordingly unlawful. 
 
 
 
15 
Today's decision greatly and, I believe, unwisely expands 
the circumstances in which officers may conduct a patfrisk.  
This expansion erodes critical constitutional protections 
against arbitrary searches and seizures by the police and 
unjustifiably broadens what is meant to be an officer's 
"narrowly drawn authority" to perform what has been described as 
a "severe . . . intrusion upon cherished personal security 
[that] must surely be an annoying, frightening, and perhaps 
humiliating experience."  Torres-Pagan, 484 Mass. at 36 n.3, 39, 
quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 24-25, 27. 
3.  Implications of the court's decision.  I write also to 
emphasize the adverse implications of today's decision for 
communities of color.  "[A]nyone's dignity can be violated" by 
an unconstitutional search; however, "it is no secret that 
people of color are disproportionate victims of this type of 
scrutiny."  Utah v. Strieff, 579 U.S. 232, 254 (2016) 
(Sotomayor, J., dissenting).8  This disparity is due in part to 
the "powerful racial stereotype" that Black men are "violence 
prone."  Buck v. Davis, 137 S. Ct. 759, 776 (2017), quoting 
Turner v. Murray, 476 U.S. 28, 35 (1986).9 
 
8 See note 4, supra. 
 
9 See Harrison & Willis Esqueda, Race Stereotypes and 
Perceptions about Black Males Involved in Interpersonal 
Violence, 5 J. Afr. Am. Stud. 81, 82 (Mar. 2001) (reviewing 
literature on negative stereotypes of Black men). 
 
 
 
16 
Today's decision will worsen this disparity.  It does not, 
of course, expressly authorize officers to pat frisk a person 
simply because of his or her race.  The racial disparities in 
our criminal justice system are decreasingly the product of 
overt racism or facially discriminatory rules.  These persistent 
disparities are, rather, more and more the product of neutral 
rules of deference that affirm the decisions of racially biased 
actors.  Cf. Commonwealth v. Long, 485 Mass. 711, 716 (2020) 
("All too frequently . . . the prohibition against facially 
discriminatory laws has been inadequate to address the role 
played by racism and other invidious classifications in the way 
facially neutral laws actually are enforced").  Today's decision 
augments the considerable deference already afforded officers by 
uncritically accepting as reasonable the officers' suspicion 
that the defendant was armed because his companion aggressively 
confronted the officers about the legality of the stop.  The 
court accepts this inference as reasonable although the officers 
provided no reasonable basis for it.  The court thereby invites 
officers to pat frisk first and invent explanations later, for 
it assures that as long as officers can articulate a reason -- 
any reason -- for which a person's behavior indicated that a 
 
 
 
17 
weapon was on the scene, that reason will be accepted and the 
patfrisk condoned.10 
This court should require more.  Such uncritical deference 
provides the space into which seeps the damaging influence of 
racial bias.  Creating greater space for officers to act on 
their ungrounded intuitions that people are dangerous increases 
the risk that people of color will be subjected 
disproportionately to unjustified patfrisks. 
If we have any hope of mitigating racial disparities in our 
criminal justice system, it is imperative that we pay close 
attention to the effect that our law of search and seizure has 
on people of color. 
The court's sanctioning of patfrisks founded upon 
objectively unreasonable suspicion is both unjustified and 
unjust.  I therefore dissent. 
 
10 See Harris, Frisking Every Subject:  The Withering of 
Terry, 28 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1, 32-36 (1994) (urging judges not 
to uncritically accept officers' reasons for believing that 
suspect is armed and dangerous, and highlighting officers' 
incentives to engage in "creative hindsight or even perjury"); 
Rudovsky & Harris, Terry Stops and Frisks:  The Troubling Use of 
Common Sense in a World of Empirical Data, 79 Ohio St. L.J. 501, 
505 (2018) (expressing concern about judge's uncritical 
acceptance of officers' empirically unmoored assumptions, 
especially because such assumptions "may be problematically 
reinforced by the fact that incriminating evidence was actually 
seized"). 
 
 
 
GAZIANO, J. (dissenting, with whom Georges, J., joins).  
The court today concludes that the police officers who stopped a 
vehicle in which the defendant was a rear seat passenger had a 
reasonable suspicion, based in large part on the behavior of the 
front seat passenger, that the defendant was armed and 
dangerous, such that they could order the defendant out of the 
vehicle and pat frisk him.  The court's view of what a police 
officer must believe in order to establish "a reasonable 
suspicion, based on specific articulable facts, that the suspect 
is armed and dangerous," Commonwealth v. Torres-Pagan, 484 Mass. 
34, 38-39 (2020), eviscerates the standard of a reasonable 
police officer and replaces it with subjective, speculative 
beliefs that an officer might have, contrary to both our 
jurisprudence under art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of 
Rights and that of the United States Supreme Court under the 
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, see Arizona 
v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 326-327 (2009) ("to proceed from a 
stop to a frisk, the police officer must reasonably suspect that 
the person stopped is armed and dangerous"); Commonwealth v. 
Wing Ng, 420 Mass. 236, 237 (1995), citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 
U.S. 1, 27 (1968).  It also finds reasonable suspicion that the 
defendant was armed and dangerous, based on the actions of 
another individual, without any of the narrow indicia that the 
individuals might have been acting jointly, which this court 
2 
 
 
 
previously has required be established, as it must to pass 
constitutional muster, that a suspicion is particularized and 
individual.  Accordingly, I dissent. 
In this case, the court reasons that the officers' 
inference that Raekwan Paris, the front seat passenger, was 
trying to distract them from the vehicle and its contents was 
objectively reasonable.  Although the officers' beliefs were 
specific and articulable, they did not identify specific and 
articulable facts upon which to ground this inference.  
"Reasonable suspicion may not be based on good faith or a 
hunch . . . ."  Commonwealth v. Grandison, 433 Mass. 135, 139 
(2001).  See Commonwealth v. Lyons, 409 Mass. 16, 19 (1990), 
quoting Commonwealth v. Wren, 391 Mass. 705, 707 (1984) ("To 
meet the 'reasonable suspicion' standard in this Commonwealth, 
police action must be 'based on specific, articulable facts and 
reasonable inferences therefrom' rather than on a 'hunch'").  
See also Vasquez v. Maloney, 990 F.3d 232, 240 (2d Cir. 2021), 
quoting Terry, 391 U.S. at 27 (speculation that warrant "might" 
be outstanding "is the quintessential 'inchoate and 
unparticularized suspicion or "hunch"'"). 
In particular, here, although Paris was acting in a manner 
that the officers perceived as notably different from the 
multiple other times in which they had encountered him, the fact 
that his behavior was different, and could be viewed as 
3 
 
 
 
potentially threatening, did not lead to a reasonable, objective 
inference that he was attempting to distract the officers from a 
weapon concealed in the vehicle.1  Indeed, the officers who 
conducted the stop and testified at the hearing on the motion to 
suppress had specific, actual knowledge and experience to the 
contrary.  On a prior occasion when Paris actually had concealed 
a firearm in a vehicle, he calmly and cooperatively walked back 
to the vehicle to speak with the officer who had called him to a 
scene where he almost certainly was aware that he would be 
arrested, and was calm and polite while being arrested.  During 
this stop, however, in addition to his noncooperation behavior 
and a confrontational physical posture, Paris argued loudly and 
angrily that police were harassing him, and repeatedly 
challenged the reason for the stop.2 
 
 
1 One of the officers testified that, but for Paris's 
actions, he "absolutely" would not have removed any of the other 
occupants of the vehicle and would have had no reason to do so 
based on their own actions, but as a result of Paris's behavior, 
he had a "hunch" that Paris was "using tactics to distract [the 
officers]."  Another testified similarly that absent Paris's 
conduct, he would not have had any reason to order anyone from 
the vehicle.  A third testified that, based on Paris's actions 
("[i]t felt to me that he was trying to distract us for -- for 
something within that vehicle), he removed the other rear seat 
passenger and the other two officers removed the remaining 
occupants from the vehicle. 
 
 
2 According to testimony by all three officers at the 
hearing on the motion to suppress, after he got out of the front 
seat, Paris "was becoming more angry towards [a detective], 
questioning the stop, accusing [the officers] of harassing him"; 
Paris argued as he walked away from the vehicle "something to 
4 
 
 
 
An inference indeed may be objectively reasonable where it 
is based on an officer's specialized training or personal 
experience, see United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 
(2002), or is a matter of common sense, apparent to any lay 
person, see Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 125 (2000).  See, 
e.g., Commonwealth v. Villagran, 477 Mass. 711, 717-718 (2017); 
Commonwealth v. Martin, 457 Mass. 14, 20-22 (2010).  Here, 
however, whatever the officers speculated were Paris's motives 
for his unusual and confrontational behavior on this occasion 
were subjective, and too speculative to permit a reasonable 
inference.  To conclude that, this time, when in possession of 
an unlicensed weapon, Paris would be likely to act in a 
confrontational and agitated manner to conceal evidence of a 
firearm would be "essentially random and arbitrary."  
Commonwealth v. Bartlett, 41 Mass. App. Ct. 468, 472 (1996).  
See United States v. Noble, 762 F.3d 509, 522 (6th Cir. 2014) 
("If subjective good faith alone were the test, the protections 
of the Fourth Amendment would evaporate, and the people would be 
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, only in 
the discretion of the police" [citation omitted]).  Guesswork 
and hunches, regardless of good faith, do not equate to 
 
the effect of 'Why you guys stopping us?  You're harassing us"; 
and even after finally moving to the rear of the vehicle, "he 
calmed down a little, but he continued asking, you know, why we 
had stopped them and so on and so forth." 
5 
 
 
 
objective reasonable suspicion.  The court's holding broadens 
what heretofore has been an officer's "narrowly drawn authority" 
to conduct what has been described as a "severe . . . intrusion 
upon cherished personal security [that] must surely be an 
annoying, frightening, and perhaps humiliating experience."  See 
Torres-Pagan, 484 Mass. at 36 n.3, 39, quoting Terry, 392 U.S. 
at 24-25, 27. 
Even assuming that the officers' inferences were 
objectively reasonable, the court makes an unjustified leap from 
the supposition that Paris was attempting to distract the 
officers to the belief that the defendant was armed and 
dangerous.  A determination of reasonable suspicion that a 
suspect is armed and dangerous must be particularized and 
individual.  See Commonwealth v. Narcisse, 457 Mass. 1, 10-13 
(2010), and cases cited.  See also Wing Ng, 420 Mass. at 237, 
citing Terry, 392 U.S. at 27.  "[A] person's mere propinquity to 
others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, 
without more, give rise to probable cause to search that 
person."  Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 91 (1979).  As the 
United States Supreme Court observed more than seventy years 
ago, it was "not convinced that a person, by mere presence in a 
suspected car, loses immunities from search of his person to 
which he would otherwise be entitled."  United States v. Di Re, 
332 U.S. 581, 587 (1948).  Rather, and as the court 
6 
 
 
 
acknowledges, this factor should be "considered in the totality 
of the circumstances and in light of other information known to 
the officers."  See Commonwealth v. Douglas, 472 Mass. 439, 443 
(2015). 
To be sure, in limited circumstances, where a clear link 
exists between the individual and the known criminal activity, 
this court has recognized that one individual's actions may be 
undertaken on behalf of a group, thereby making the actions of 
others in the group of relatively lesser importance in 
justifying a patfrisk of each of them.  In Wing Ng, 420 Mass. 
at 240-241, for example, the court concluded that police were 
justified in pat frisking the driver of a vehicle where the 
driver was the brother of a person suspected of having committed 
an armed home invasion, that person was a passenger in the 
vehicle, and police reasonably could have inferred, from that 
and other factors, that the driver might have participated in 
the armed home invasion with his brother.  In that case, the 
patfrisk of the driver was upheld notwithstanding the absence of 
any conduct by the driver himself that would have raised a 
reasonable suspicion that he was armed and dangerous.  See id.  
See also, e.g., Villagran, 477 Mass. at 718 ("principal's hunch 
combined with [officer]'s observations of the defendant's 
nervousness and [officer]'s testimony that both the principal 
and the vice-principal appeared to be 'rattled' still did not 
7 
 
 
 
establish a reasonable belief that the defendant was armed and 
dangerous where the defendant was compliant and did not make any 
furtive gestures or reach into his pockets in a manner that 
would suggest that he was carrying a weapon"). 
Here, the court concludes that Paris's motive in 
undertaking his actions (insofar as it was understood in the 
subjective belief of the officers) could be imputed to the 
defendant, thereby providing reasonable suspicion that the 
defendant was armed and dangerous, and that Paris was attempting 
to distract police from becoming aware of this fact.  
Interpreting Paris's interactions with police, however, as 
motivated by a desire to protect a fellow gang member who was in 
possession of a gun, rather than, as he claimed them to be 
during the interaction, a request for information concerning the 
reasons for the stop and a protest of perceived police 
harassment, is too speculative to give rise to a reasonable 
suspicion.3  See Commonwealth v. Stampley, 437 Mass. 323, 326 
 
3 In his concurrence, Justice Lowy argues that, based on 
similar facts to those here, courts in other jurisdictions 
properly have concluded that police had a reasonable suspicion 
that an individual was armed and dangerous.  See ante at    .  
The circumstances in those cases, however, are quite distinct.  
Unlike the facts here, for example, the police who conducted the 
patfrisk at issue in United States v. Soares, 521 F.3d 117, 118, 
122 (1st Cir. 2008), observed the defendant and his companions 
engage in movements consistent with concealing something inside 
the vehicle in which they were traveling.  Moreover, the 
defendant himself exhibited "erratic and uncooperative 
behavior," id. at 121, in marked contrast to the defendant's 
8 
 
 
 
(2002) (defendant's initial behavior during routine traffic 
stop, although "peculiar" and "unusual," was not threatening). 
 
While, in certain circumstances, those in a vehicle 
together reasonably might be viewed as being engaged in a 
collective action, see Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 304-
305 (1999), here, the officers were aware that three of the 
occupants of the vehicle belonged to three different gangs, and 
the driver, as far as they knew, was not associated with any 
gang.  There was no evidence of recent gang violence, and the 
officers were not investigating any gang-related activity when 
they stopped the vehicle for an abrupt lane change as it pulled 
into the parking lot of a fast food restaurant.  In the totality 
of the circumstances of which the officers were aware, there was 
nothing to suggest the likelihood of collective action by the 
passengers.  Compare Wing Ng, 420 Mass. at 241.  Contrast United 
 
calm and cooperative behavior in this case.  The circumstances 
in United States v. Rice, 483 F.3d 1079, 1085 (10th Cir. 2007), 
also are dissimilar.  In that case, "[b]ased on the time of 
night and the unusual driving pattern, [the officer who 
initiated the vehicle stop] suspected the occupants might be 
preparing for a burglary or drive-by shooting."  Id. at 1081.  
Similarly, in United States vs. Goebel, U.S. Dist. Ct., No. 18-
CR-2752 KG (D.N.M. Nov. 15, 2018), report and recommendation 
adopted, No. 18-CR-2752 KG (D.N.M. Dec. 19, 2018), aff'd, 959 
F.3d 1259 (10th Cir. 2020), the involved officers had grounds to 
suspect that the defendant and his companions were engaged in 
criminal activity.  The officers who initiated the traffic stop 
at issue here expressed no such suspicions at the hearing on the 
motion to suppress, and the Commonwealth has provided no 
foundation for any such suspicion. 
9 
 
 
 
States v. Thomas, 997 F.3d 603, 607, 610-611 (5th Cir. 2021) 
(officers reasonably suspected defendant and three others 
gathered around stolen vehicle were involved in criminal 
activity, where vehicle matched description of one stolen during 
armed robbery in which two men fled scene, license plate matched 
that of stolen vehicle, there were two men in vehicle, defendant 
was standing closest to driver, and all six men appeared to be 
talking to each other). 
"[I]n determining whether the officer acted reasonably in 
such circumstances, due weight must be given, not to his [or 
her] inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 'hunch,' but to 
the specific reasonable inferences which [the officer] is 
entitled to draw from the facts in light of [the officer's] 
experience."  Terry, 392 U.S. at 27.  As the United States 
Supreme Court has emphasized, although what constitutes 
reasonable suspicion is not "self-defining," the "demand for 
specificity in the information upon which police action is 
predicated is the central teaching of this Court's Fourth 
Amendment jurisprudence."  United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 
411, 417, 418 (1981), quoting Terry, supra at 21 n.18.  "The 
vice in interrogations and searches based on a hunch is their 
essentially random and arbitrary nature, a quality inconsistent, 
under constitutional norms . . . with a free and ordered 
society."  Bartlett, 41 Mass. App. Ct. at 472.  See Ybarra, 444 
10 
 
 
 
U.S. at 90-91, 93 (patfrisk was unconstitutional where patron of 
bar, unknown to police, "made no gestures or other actions 
indicative of an intent to commit an assault, and acted 
generally in a manner that was not threatening"); Torres-Pagan, 
484 Mass. at 39 (patfrisk was not justified where defendant "was 
not secreting anything, nor was he attempting to reach for 
anything").  Contrast United States v. Belin, 868 F.3d 43, 46, 
50-51 (1st Cir. 2017), cert. denied, 138 S. Ct. 703 (2018) 
(reasonable suspicion for stop and for frisk where officer knew 
defendant previously had carried firearm unlawfully, defendant 
was identified as gang member, and he had been acting "unusually 
nervous[ly]"); United States v. Roelandt, 827 F.3d 746, 748-749 
(8th Cir. 2016), and cases cited (reasonable suspicion for 
patfrisk where known felon and gang member was walking quickly 
through high crime area and looking around suspiciously). 
Furthermore, nothing in the defendant's own actions gave 
rise to a reasonable suspicion that he was armed and dangerous.  
It is undisputed that the defendant obeyed the officers' 
instructions, was quiet and polite, and sat in the vehicle 
without any movements or gestures to suggest that he was in 
possession of a firearm.  So, too, with the driver and the other 
rear seat passenger.  Contrast United States v. Bell, 762 F.2d 
495, 496-497, 501 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 853 (1985) 
(reasonable suspicion to pat frisk defendant, front seat 
11 
 
 
 
passenger in parked car officers approached to arrest driver 
pursuant to warrant, where defendant repeatedly refused to obey 
officers' instructions to keep his hands on dashboard where they 
could be seen, and later to leave vehicle, so officers safely 
could execute arrest of driver; driver was being arrested for 
operating large scale food stamp trafficking ring and was known 
to have accomplice whose physical description roughly matched 
defendant's).  Contrast also Commonwealth v. Johnson, 454 Mass. 
159, 161-164 (2009) (defendant's refusal to take hands out of 
pockets as officers asked gave rise to reasonable concern for 
officer safety, where officers saw six young men, including 
defendant, standing in group outside apartment building, 
recognized one who had received no-trespass notice to stay away 
from building, and arrested him, while defendant stood nearby). 
The court also emphasizes the gang affiliations of the 
vehicle's occupants.  As the court points out, in some 
circumstances, such as where police are investigating gang-
related violence or otherwise are aware of ongoing gang activity 
such as a feud among rival gangs in the area, gang affiliations 
may be highly relevant to a determination of reasonable 
suspicion.  See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Smith, 450 Mass. 395, 
398-399, cert. denied, 555 U.S. 893 (2008); United States v. 
Rios, 830 F.3d 403, 421 (6th Cir. 2016), cert. denied, 138 S. 
Ct. 2701 (2018).  In this context, however, these affiliations 
12 
 
 
 
were of limited relevance.  See Douglas, 472 Mass. at 441 
(defendant had been under surveillance by police for potential 
involvement in ongoing violence between rival groups); Wing Ng, 
420 Mass. at 240-241 (defendant was suspected of having 
participated in armed home invasion that took place one week 
earlier). 
This case involves neither scenario.  The officers did not 
observe any of the vehicle's occupants move in a manner 
suggesting that they were carrying, concealing, or reaching for 
a weapon.  Nor did the officers have a preexisting suspicion 
that any of the occupants were engaging in, or recently had 
engaged in, violent criminal activity.  Rather, the officers 
explained that they pat frisked the defendant because Paris's 
behavior precipitated in their minds a chain of inferences:  
they inferred from Paris that he sought to draw their attention 
away from the vehicle; they further inferred that this was 
because the vehicle contained contraband; and, finally, they 
inferred that this contraband was a weapon.  Contrast Arvizu, 
534 U.S. at 273; Commonwealth v. DePeiza, 449 Mass. 367, 373 
(2007). 
Moreover, the Commonwealth introduced no evidence 
concerning recent gang violence in the vicinity of the stop, 
police were not investigating gang-related crime when they 
initiated the traffic stop, and the Commonwealth did not link 
13 
 
 
 
any efforts by Paris to distract the officers from the vehicle 
and its contents to any gang activity.  Compare United States v. 
Samnang Am, 564 F.3d 25, 32 (1st Cir. 2009), cert. denied, 559 
U.S. 986 (2010) (reasonable suspicion justified patfrisk where 
defendant was affiliated with gang, had lengthy criminal 
history, was on probation, and had established proclivity to 
carry weapons, and officer noted unusual occurrence of defendant 
walking alone in rival gang's territory), and United States v. 
Elmore, 382 F. Supp. 3d 136, 140-141 (D. Mass. 2019) (reasonable 
suspicion to justify patfrisk where defendant was near vehicle 
matching description of vehicle seen at recent gang shooting in 
high crime area linked to gang suspected to have been involved 
in earlier shootings; defendant moved away suddenly when 
officers approached; and defendant grabbed at his waistband 
several times), with State v. Abel, 68 A.3d 1228, 1237-1239 
(Del. 2012) (no reasonable suspicion for patfrisk despite 
defendant's affiliation with motorcycle gang, in part due to 
absence of facts "that indicated gang activity was occurring 
nearby"). 
In Abel, 68 A.2d at 1237-1238, the Supreme Court of 
Delaware considered the extent to which gang membership alone 
supported a reasonable belief that an individual was armed and 
dangerous.  An officer testified that he had stopped the 
defendant, who was riding a motorcycle and wearing Hells Angels 
14 
 
 
 
insignia ("colors").  The experienced officer knew that Delaware 
is considered territory controlled by the rival Pagans 
motorcycle club.  On the basis of an ongoing feud between these 
groups, the prosecution argued that "[a] gang member traveling 
unarmed through a rival gang's territory is subject to a serious 
risk to [his] safety; consequently, a police officer 
encountering a Hells Angels member flying colors in Pagans 
territory faces a heightened concern that the person has access 
to a weapon."  Id. at 1235.  The court rejected this argument; 
it reasoned that the prosecution's position would sanction a 
patfrisk for weapons whenever a Hells Angels member was stopped 
for a motor vehicle violation anywhere in Delaware, because the 
entire State was rival gang territory.  Id.  Here, the varied 
gang affiliations of the defendant and two of his companions did 
not significantly contribute to the supposition that the 
defendant was armed and dangerous. 
Finally, I share the concerns articulated by Chief Justice 
Budd in her dissent, see ante at    ; the court disregards the 
adverse impact its decision will have on individuals and 
communities of color.  It is an unfortunate reality that gang 
membership may serve as a pretext for racial bias.  See 
Commonwealth v. Evelyn, 485 Mass. 691, 708-709 (2020); 
Commonwealth v. Warren, 475 Mass. 530, 538-540 (2016).  In 
neighborhoods where gangs are present, the risk of racial 
15 
 
 
 
disparities in police stops is heightened by the increased 
numbers of encounters between police and residents, many of whom 
are law-abiding citizens, and all of whom are entitled to the 
same protections against unreasonable searches and seizures as 
those who live in other areas.  See Warren, supra at 539-540.  
See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Meneus, 476 Mass. 231, 238 (2017); 
Commonwealth v. Jones-Pannell, 472 Mass. 429, 434-435 (2015); 
Commonwealth v. Gomes, 453 Mass. 506, 512-513 (2009).  Cf. 
Commonwealth v. Wardsworth, 482 Mass. 454, 468-471 (2019). 
In sum, the court's decision that, at the time of the 
patfrisk of the defendant, "'a reasonably prudent [person] in 
the [officer's] position would be warranted' in the belief 'that 
the safety of the police or that of other persons was in 
danger,'" ante at    , quoting Commonwealth v. Torres, 433 Mass. 
669, 675-676 (2001), because the defendant was armed and 
endangering them, improperly blurs the distinction between a 
subjective belief and reasonable suspicion to the point that 
establishing reasonable suspicion by an ordinary, reasonable 
officer no longer is the bedrock determination to be made.  When 
the defendant was ordered out of the rear passenger seat and pat 
frisked, Paris was in handcuffs and surrounded by other officers 
at the rear of the vehicle.  None of the other occupants of the 
vehicle had made any suspicious or nervous movements since the 
initiation of the stop, nor was there any reason to believe that 
16 
 
 
 
they had instigated Paris's uncooperative or belligerent 
behavior.  There was nothing that would have hindered the 
officers from returning to the purpose of the traffic stop -- 
the abrupt lane change -- and proceeding accordingly. 
Because I would not veer from the well-established standard 
of Terry, 392 U.S. at 27, and Torres-Pagan, 484 Mass. at 38-39, 
I respectfully dissent.