Opinion ID: 400070
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Conduct of Contacts.

Text: 11 Persons contacted may not be detained against their will or frisked. They may not be required to answer the officer's questions or in any way respond to the officer if they choose not to do so. The officer may not use force or coercion to attempt to require citizens to stop or respond. If they refuse to co-operate, they must be permitted to go on their way; however, if it seems appropriate under the circumstances, they may be kept under surveillance. Since a contact is not a stop or an arrest and the person contacted may be innocent of wrongdoing of any kind, officers should take special care to act in as restrained and courteous a manner as possible. 12 General Order at 1-2; J.A. at 484-85 (emphasis in the original). In contrast, the General Order defines a stop as 13 the temporary detention of a person for the purpose of determining whether probable cause exists to arrest that person. A stop occurs whenever an officer uses his authority to compel a person to halt, or to keep him in a certain place, or to require him to perform some act (such as walking to a nearby location where the officer can use a radio, telephone or call box). If a person is under a reasonable impression that he is not free to leave the officer's presence, a stop has occurred. 14 Id. at 2; J.A. at 485. There is a basis for a stop if (the) officer reasonably suspects that a person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit any crime.... Id. (emphasis in the original). 15 Both types of police-citizen encounters are recorded on a PD Form 76, an MPD form that provides space for recording the name, address, race, sex, date of birth, height, weight, eye and hair color, complexion and clothing of the person encountered. In addition, there is a section in which the officer is to record the justification for the stop or contact. Officers are required to maintain records of stops; records of contacts, however, are not mandatory, but may be required by individual commanding officers. Id. at 16; J.A. at 499. Excluding encounters that result in formal arrests, MPD officers record approximately 14,000 police-citizen encounters per year. 4 16 In March 1980, the Gomez plaintiffs filed an amended and supplemental complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief alleging, inter alia, that (w)hen a police officer contacts a pedestrian pursuant to General Order 304.10 or any other MPD order authorizing such behavior, the officer is making an unreasonable seizure of the pedestrian in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Second Amended and Supplemental Complaint at 1, Gomez v. Jefferson, Civ. No. 2909-67 (D.D.C. May 13, 1981, as amended May 18, 1981) (hereinafter Gomez v. Jefferson); J.A. at 141, 153. Thereafter, both parties moved for summary judgment.