Court Opinion

ID: 9789003
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:24:26.20997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:18.490593
License: Public Domain

McAnany, J.:
Sergeant Thomas Hongslo was patrolling in the area of 1-35 and 95th Street in Johnson County at 11:45 p.m. He was a 14-year veteran of the police force with experience and training in drug intervention, including training at the Operation Pipeline School conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration, *21as well as two street narcotics schools. He and other officers patrolled the area because of its high incidence of drug activity and their success in making arrests and recovering narcotics. He had found the area to be particularly suited for narcotics activity because of its convenient location and access to pay phones at two gas stations there. In fact, since 1995 there had been 8 drug arrests at the nearby Phillips 66 station and 13 at the nearby Texaco station. In the 16-block area there had been 668 drug arrests since 1995. Records from the Lenexa Police Department disclose that 32% of all drug arrests in that city occurred within a half square-mile area that included these two gas stations.
Hongslo was in uniform that night but was driving an unmarked car. He observed a gold Dodge pickup truck with tinted windows parked at the Phillips 66 gas station out of the line of sight of the clerk inside the station. When Hongslo drove past the gold truck he made eye contact with the driver, who saw that Hongslo was wearing a police uniform. Hongslo then drove to the parking lot of an adjoining business and continued to observe the gold truck.
After a few minutes, a blue Ford Ranger pickup truck pulled into the gas station and parked directly behind the gold pickup. Howard Cook got out of the passenger s side of the blue truck and walked towards the gold truck. The gold truck started driving away, and Cook slowly jogged toward it and whistled. The gold truck did not stop. Cook returned to the blue truck and the two trucks drove across the bridge spanning 1-35 to another nearby gas station, JB’s One Stop, located at 95th Street and Noland Road. The gold truck backed into a parking space. The blue truck parked 50 feet away. At that point, Cook got out of the blue truck, ran to the gold truck, and got in on the passenger’s side. After less than a minute, Cook returned to the blue truck. The blue truck then drove to the front of the gas station, and Cook got out and went inside the gas station. The gold truck drove away.
Based on his training and experience, the behavior of the two individuals, the time of night, the short time Cook spent in the gold truck, and the location where the vehicles were parked, Hongslo believed a drug transaction had taken place. He radioed for Officer Shannon Trevino to stop the gold truck. Hongslo then observed *22Cook exit the gas station carrying a red soda can. Cook got into the blue truck which left the scene and drove south on 1-35.
Hongslo stopped the blue truck. Its driver, Terrance Brown, told Hongslo that he had driven Cook to the gas station to meet someone to get some clothes. Brown denied knowing anything about a drug transaction and consented to a search of the truck.
Hongslo then asked Cook why he had made contact with the person in the gold truck. Cook responded that he was meeting the person about a job. In the course of searching the truck Hongslo saw a red Coke can on the dashboard in front of the passenger’s seat. Inside the soda can, Hongslo saw a plastic bag with a white powdery substance which tests later determined to be cocaine. Cook told Hongslo he had purchased the drugs for $20 from the man in the gold truck, but claimed he had purchased the drugs for Brown.
Trevino stopped and searched the gold truck. He found several stacks of money together with bags of crack cocaine.
Cook moved to suppress the evidence and statements obtained during his arrest. In denying the motion, Chief Judge Tatum stated:
“In the case at hand, Officer Hongslo was able to articulate a number of factors to support a reasonable suspicion. Officer Hongslo testified that the area he was observing was a high crime area, known for numerous drug transactions. Officer Hongslo further testified that the defendant’s suspicious conduct, the manner in which the defendants made contact, the time of night, the short time Cook was in Bowen’s truck, the location where the trucks were parked, and the fact that Officer Hongslo had observed this type of behavior many times while investigating narcotics activity in the same high crime area, were all factors that formed the basis of his reasonable suspicion. Each of these factors taken individually would be insufficient to support a finding of probable cause. However, taken together, under the totality of the circumstances, the Court finds that Officer Hongslo was able to articulate sufficient factors to support a finding of probable cause. Therefore, Officer Hongslo was justified in stopping the vehicle in which Cook was a passenger in order to investigate further his reasonable suspicion that criminal activity had been, was, or was about to occur.”
A bench trial followed and Cook was convicted of possession of cocaine. Cook now appeals the denial of his motion to suppress, claiming Hongslo’s stop of the blue truck was not based on reasonable suspicion but a mere hunch.
*23The facts material to the district court’s decision on the motion were not in dispute. Hence, we have unlimited review over the legal question whether the district court should have sustained the motion. State v. Porting, 281 Kan. 320, 324, 130 P.3d 1173 (2006).
There is no issue about the legitimacy of the search of Brown’s truck after it was stopped or the incriminating statements made by Cook. The sole issue is the legitimacy of Hongslo’s stop of the blue truck. If it was improper, then the physical evidence found and statements made must be suppressed.
In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889, 88 S. Ct. 1868 (1968), the seminal case out of which the police practice of “stop and frisk” has been sanctioned, Officer McFadden, who had many years experience on the Cleveland police force, was assigned an area of downtown to patrol in plain clothes for pickpockets and shoplifters. He observed two men standing on a street comer. One walked down the street, peered into a store window, and then returned to the other man where they conferred for a time. The other man then walked down the street and looked into the same window and returned to the comer where the two men conferred again. This went on about a dozen times. A third man approached and engaged them for a time and then left. The original two men then conferred again and then followed the third man down the street. McFadden suspected the men were casing the store for a robbery, and feared the men might be armed. Thus, he approached them, asked them their names, and patted them down for weapons. Two of the men were carrying revolvers, and they were arrested and charged with possession of a concealed weapon.
The Supreme Court acknowledged that the men engaged in “a series of acts, each of them perhaps innocent in itself, but which taken together warranted further investigation.” 392 U.S. at 22. Moreover, the court observed: “It would have been poor police work indeed for an officer of 30 years’ experience in the detection of thievery from stores in this same neighborhood to have failed to investigate this behavior.” 392 U.S. at 23. The Supreme Court concluded that McFadden was exercising a legitimate investigative function when he approached the three men for the purpose of investigating his reasonable suspicion of possible criminal behavior *24even though there was no probable cause at the time to make an arrest. 392 U.S. at 30; see also Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 125, 145 L. Ed. 2d 570, 120 S. Ct. 673 (2000), in which the court observed: “All of this conduct was by itself lawful, but it also suggested that the individuals were casing the store for a planned robbery. Terry recognized that the officers could detain the individuals to resolve the ambiguity.”
The ruling in Terry has been codified in Kansas in K.S.A. 22-2402(1) which permits an investigatory detention if it is supported by specific and articulable facts which raise a reasonable suspicion the person stopped has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime.
Reasonable suspicion is a less demanding standard than probable cause in terms of the quantity and quality of the evidence available to the police. State v. Parker, 282 Kan. 584, 147 P.3d 115 (2006). In determining whether reasonable suspicion existed at the time of a stop, we consider the totality of the circumstances, using common sense and ordinary human experience and giving deference to a trained law enforcement officer s ability to distinguish between innocent and suspicious circumstances. A police officer’s mere hunch will not do. The officer must have a particularized suspicion of wrongdoing. State v. Toney, 253 Kan. 651, 656, 862 P.2d 350 (1993). “ ‘We make our determination with deference to a trained law enforcement officer’s ability to distinguish between innocent and suspicious circumstances, [citation omitted], remembering that reasonable suspicion represents a “minimum level of objective justification.” ’ ” State v. DeMarco, 263 Kan. 727, 735, 952 P.2d 1276 (1998); see State v. Moore, 283 Kan. 344, 154 P.3d 1 (2007).
Cook’s conduct, to an untrained eye, may have raised no suspicion whatsoever or, at most, a mere hunch that something funny was going on. The average citizen of Johnson County, familiar with the scene, more likely would look upon the general area as a popular shopping destination with upscale stores such as Nordstrom’s nearby, rather than a center for drug activity. The conduct that justified Officer McFadden’s detention of the defendant in Terry was not on its face illegal and could have been innocent. Similarly, Cook’s conduct could have been entirely innocent. It is certainly *25not illegal to engage in a meeting late at night at a gas station. When stopped by Honglso, Brown and Cook each provided different but certainly possible innocent scenarios. One had to do with getting some clothes, the other with getting a job. Conduct that is susceptible of an innocent explanation, such as the explanations Brown and Cook later tried to use on Hongslo, may nevertheless cause an officer, trained in drug enforcement and having a familiarity with the drug history of the area, to harbor a reasonable and specific suspicion of illegal drug activity that needs further investigation.
We cannot improve on Chief Judge Tatum’s analysis. In overruling Cook’s motion, he cited a multitude of factors from the evidence which, considered together, created a reasonable, articulable, particularized suspicion that Cook had been engaged in a drug transaction, particularly when observed by an officer with Hongslo’s training and experience in enforcing drug crimes in this area known for its high incidence of drug transactions. The district court did not err in denying Cook’s motion to suppress.
Affirmed.