Opinion ID: 2771740
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mr. Lozado’s Stop, Arrest, and Search

Text: On March 21, 2013, Officers Sean Stevenson and Richard Eric Shurley of the Denver Police Department noticed someone driving a car with a cracked windshield and an expired, temporary Texas license plate. They followed the car and initiated a traffic stop. The driver, Mr. Lozado, stopped the car, immediately jumped out, and ran into his nearby apartment building. The officers saw what appeared to be a black handgun in Mr. -3- Lozado’s right hand. After police surrounded the apartment building, Mr. Lozado surrendered. Officer Stevenson confirmed the driver was Mr. Lozado and the car was registered in Mr. Lozado’s name. Officer Stevenson then searched the car. He found a large plastic trash bag behind the driver’s seat. It contained a small black purse. Inside the purse, Officer Stevenson found ten 9-millimeter bullets and a .38 caliber spent shell casing. Winchester made the bullets, which had brass shell casings. Also in the plastic trash bag, Officer Stevenson found pills, hallucinogenic mushrooms, a large sword with an ivory handle, a brown wallet containing Mr. Lozado’s driver’s license, and a small gum wrapper that Officer Stevenson suspected contained methamphetamine. Officers also searched Mr. Lozado’s apartment. They did not find a firearm but did find a bag containing hallucinogenic mushrooms, a twenty-dollar bill, and red pills under a cushion on the sofa. In a closet, an officer found a pair of shorts containing a 9- millimeter bullet, a .45 caliber bullet, a bag of white powder later determined to be cocaine base, and two envelopes. The bullets, not made by Winchester, had gray shell casings. The envelopes contained paystubs made out to Mr. Farris. After being taken into custody, Mr. Lozado told Officer Adam Bechthold about a bag with 9-millimeter ammunition and some .38 caliber shell casings in the main compartment of his car, a plastic bag with hallucinogenic mushrooms and a single prescription pill in the center console, and a BB gun in the trunk. He also told Officer Bechthold what appeared to be the handgun he had been holding was actually a wax handgun, which he had broken up into four pieces and flushed down the toilet. Mr. -4- Lozado said he needed live ammunition to make the wax handgun and the BB gun look real. Later at the police station, Mr. Lozado admitted the ammunition and drugs in the car and the hallucinogenic mushrooms, twenty-dollar bill, and pills in his sofa were his. But he did not take responsibility for the drugs found in Mr. Farris’s shorts, saying instead that if Mr. Farris owned something, he “need[ed] to be a man and stand up and take his punishment.” ROA, Vol. III at 726. Police arrested Mr. Farris on the same day for possession of a controlled substance, but they released him without charges.