Opinion ID: 1896184
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: whether the police officer's acts of following walker's truck and making an investigatory stop were based on reasonable suspicion.

Text: ¶ 9. Walker claims that probable cause and/or reasonable suspicion did not exist because Officer Greg Smorowski, the first officer on the scene, began following Walker's truck before Officer Smorowski was able to determine that Walker's appearance matched that of the description given. Indeed, the record shows: ... Dispatch put out a call that there was a white male subject inside Sam's attempting to purchase a large amount of ephedrine. So I told dispatch that I was in the area, and I pulled up onto the parking lot trying to locate the subjects or the vehicle. At that time, they didn't have a vehicle description. [A] blue pickup truck ... was leaving the parking lot as I was pulling up on the parking lot. It was occupied by two white males.... I looked down at it, and it didn't have any brake lights on the vehicle. So I pulled in behind it and waited for traffic to clear. When they got a break in traffic, the vehicle made a left turn out onto Goodman Road, and at that time, I made a left turn out on Goodman Road after the vehicle, and I was able to observe the driver of the vehicle. The driver of the vehicle, as the call was put out was supposed to be a white male wearing a striped shirt where the stripes ran up and down. ¶ 10. Walker is mistaken that probable cause was needed to (1) watch the truck because of the defective brake lights; (2) follow the vehicle after matching Walker's description with that given by the Sam's employee; and (3) make an investigatory stop. All that is needed for these activities is reasonable suspicion: [T]he Fourth Amendment ... requires that in every situation the officer must make the intrusion into the person's privacy as limited as reasonably possible. On the other hand, as aptly stated in United States v. West, 460 F.2d 374 (5th Cir.1972), The local policeman ... is also in a very real sense a guardian of the public peace and he has a duty in the course of his work to be alert for suspicious circumstances, and, provided that he acts within constitutional limits, to investigate whenever such circumstances indicate to him that he should do so. Singletary v. State, 318 So.2d 873, 876 (Miss.1975). The constitutional requirements for an investigative stop and detention are less stringent than those for an arrest. An investigative stop of a suspect may be made so long as an officer has a reasonable suspicion, grounded in specific and articulable facts, that a person he encounters was involved in or is wanted in connection with a felony. ( Floyd v. City of Crystal Springs, 749 So.2d 110, 114 (Miss.1999)). Put another way, the investigative stop exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement allows a police officer to conduct a brief investigative stop if the officer had a reasonable suspicion, based upon specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, result in the conclusion that criminal behavior has occurred or is imminent. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1878-79, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, 904-05 (1968). ¶ 11. We find that Officer Smorowski did have a reasonable suspicion to pick out Walker, to begin to follow him, and to make an investigatory stop. The officer knew that a white male had bought a large quantity of ephedrine. The Sam's employee could not have called the police department until the person checked out because there was no way to determine what the person was purchasing until check-out. Therefore, the officer reasonably opined that the person would be in the parking lot by the time the officer arrived. He saw Walker's truck with two white male passengers. At that point, it was reasonable to suspect that the white male who purchased the ephedrine could be one of the occupants of the truck. He noticed that the truck did not have brake lights, so, as the truck had stopped at the entrance to the parking lot in order to make a left-hand turn, the officer pulled in behind it. As the truck pulled out into traffic, the officer was able to see that the driver (Walker) of the truck had on a pullover shirt with three wide stripes, matching the description given by the Sam's employee. The officer began to follow the truck and then made an investigatory stop. ¶ 12. The United States Supreme Court has stated that, as a general rule, the decision to stop an automobile is reasonable where the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred. Floyd, 749 So.2d at 115 (citing Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 810, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 1772, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996)). Miss.Code Ann. § 63-7-13(3) (Rev.1996) provides that every motor vehicle ... shall be equipped with at least one rear lamp mounted on the rear, which, when lighted, shall emit a red light plainly visible from a distance of five hundred feet to the rear. Therefore, because Walker's truck violated § 63-7-13(3), and a traffic violation had occurred, stopping the truck was reasonable. This issue is without merit.