Court Opinion

ID: 9863200
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 03:11:48.005323+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:47:54.460023
License: Public Domain

MANSFIELD, Judge,
concurring.
After detaining two individuals who he observed concluding what appeared to be a narcotics transaction, Officer Cardenas questioned one of them, who informed Officer Cardenas he knew where he could “get a lot more heroin.” The individual stated he had personally observed the person (who is the appellant) who had the heroin and described his ethnicity, his clothing, and his physical stature. He further related that the person possessed ten balloons of heroin in his mouth. Two more police officers then arrived to assist Officer Cardenas. A few minutes later, the individual spotted appellant walking nearby and pointed him out to the police officers.1
The police officers then approached appellant and asked him to stop. Appellant reacted by walking away at a faster rate. Officer Cardenas testified he asked appellant what he had in his mouth and observed appellant making swallowing motions. Officer Cardenas ran to appellant, grabbed him and told him to “spit it out.” Appellant, in response to force applied by Officer Cardenas, spit out three balloons, which subsequently were found to contain heroin. Another heroin-filled balloon was recovered from his stomach at the hospital.
A police officer may stop and frisk an individual if he has reasonable suspicion to believe the individual has been involved in a completed felony or if he has reasonable suspicion that the individual is about to or is committing a crime. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985). An anonymous tip, provided it contains sufficient details which are subsequently corroborated, may be the basis to provide sufficient reasonable suspicion for a temporary investigative stop. Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (1990); Amores v. State, 816 S.W.2d 407 (Tex.Crim.App. 1991).
In the present case, the police were provided a detailed description by an informant of appellant, who the informant alleged possessed balloons filled with heroin. The informant’s tip was corroborated a short time later when the police observed appellant, wearing the clothing the informant said he was wearing. They also observed appellant’s physical characteristics, which matched those described to them a short time earlier by said informant, additional corroboration of the informant’s tip. Clearly, they had reasonable cause to approach appellant and to stop and frisk him. Amores, supra; Alabama v. White, supra; Woodward v. State, 668 S.W.2d 337 (Tex.Crim.App.1982) (op. on rehearing), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1181, 105 S.Ct. 939, 83 L.Ed.2d 952 (1985).
Additionally, appellant attempted to evade the police so that he could attempt to destroy the evidence by swallowing it—this action conducted in plain view of the officers. Thus the officers were entitled to take immediate action reasonably calculated to preserve evidence of a felony that reasonable persons on the scene would have concluded had been committed or was about to be committed by the appellant, given the totality of the circumstances. Eisenhauer v. State, 754 S.W.2d 159 (Tex.Crim.App.1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 848, 109 S.Ct. 127, 102 L.Ed.2d 101 (1988); United States v. Brad*92ley, 923 F.2d 362 (5th Cir.1991). “Where there are exigent circumstances in which police action literally must be ‘now or never’ to preserve the evidence of the crime, it is reasonable to permit action without prior judicial evaluation.” Roaden v. Kentucky, 413 U.S. 496, 505, 93 S.Ct. 2796, 2801-02, 37 L.Ed.2d 757 (1973). The force applied by Officer Cardenas was reasonable under the circumstances, which demanded he act quickly to prevent destruction of possible evidence of a felony, not to mention protecting appellant from possible loss of life should one of the balloons burst inside the appellant’s digestive tract.
In light of the opinions from this Court and the Supreme Court cited above, I join the opinion of the Court reversing the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remanding the cause to the Court of Appeals for consideration of appellant’s remaining points of error.

. Three police officers testified heroin dealers often place balloons containing heroin in their mouths while conducting transactions. The events described herein all took place in an area the officers testified was know to them as one where transactions involving illegal substances frequently occurred.