Opinion ID: 2583058
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Social contact

Text: ¶ 14 Washington courts have not set in stone a definition for so-called social contact. It occupies an amorphous area in our jurisprudence, resting someplace between an officer's saying hello to a stranger on the street and, at the other end of the spectrum, an investigative detention (i.e., Terry stop). See generally Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). The phrase's plain meaning seems somewhat misplaced. Social contact suggests idle conversation about, presumably, the weather or last night's ball game  trivial niceties that have no likelihood of triggering an officer's suspicion of criminality. The term social contact does not suggest an investigative component. ¶ 15 However its application in the field  and in this court  appears different. For example we have categorized interactions where officers ask for an individual's identification as social contact. See Young, 135 Wash.2d at 511, 957 P.2d 681. Article I, section 7 does not forbid social contacts between police and citizens: `[A] police officer's conduct in engaging a defendant in conversation in a public place and asking for identification does not, alone, raise the encounter to an investigative detention.' Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Armenta, 134 Wash.2d at 11, 948 P.2d 1280); see also State v. Belanger, 36 Wash.App. 818, 820, 677 P.2d 781 (1984) ([N]ot every public street encounter between a citizen and the police rises to the stature of a seizure. Law enforcement officers do not `seize' a person by merely approaching that individual on the street or in another public place, or by engaging him in conversation.). In Young we found effective law enforcement techniques not only require passive police observation, but also necessitate interaction with citizens on the streets. ¶ 16 Here Reiber described his initial interaction with Harrington as a social contact. Reiber did not activate his police emergency lights or siren. His patrol car was not in sight. Reiber approached Harrington on foot and asked whether he could talk to Harrington. Harrington consented to speak with the officer without duress or compulsion. During the conversation Reiber allowed Harrington freedom to use the sidewalk. Reiber did not otherwise block Harrington's egress from the site. Under existing law Reiber's initial actions did not rise to the level of seizure. Analyzing this encounter under Washington's purely objective standard, a reasonable person at the beginning of the conversation would not have thought Reiber restrained that person's freedom of movement. [4] ¶ 17 Subsequent events quickly dispelled the social contact, however, and escalated the encounter to a seizure.