Court Opinion

ID: 9735254
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:06:57.313179+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:56.343774
License: Public Domain

PAGE, Justice
(dissenting).
I write to comment on the court’s determination that stopping the Agunbiades did not violate the standard set out in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).
As the court notes at footnote 9, Terry permits an officer to make an investigatory stop only when the officer can “point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.” 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1880. Nothing contained in Terry permits discriminatory stops.
Appellants list seven factors, in addition to race, which “reasonably warranted” the officers’ stop of the Agunbiades in connection with the robbery. The court, in concluding that there was a reasonable basis for the stop of the Agunbiades’ vehicle, relies on two of these factors, in addition to race. In my view, these factors, taken either individually or in combination, did not reasonably warrant the stop.
1) “The suspect was described as male and the passenger in the vehicle was male.” Gender alone is no reason to believe a person has been involved in a crime. Additionally, here the suspect was a lone male, yet the stop was of an adult female and a thirteen-year-old male.
2) “The suspect vehicle reached the intersection of Highway 10 and County Road I at a time in which a vehicle leaving the crime scene would have reached this intersection.” The speed of a vehicle, given the time elapsed, would determine how far a vehicle would be from the crime scene, assuming it was continuously in motion, and assuming it took a direct route. Further, if a vehicle was involved, it could not be known how long it would have taken the suspect to reach the vehicle in order to flee from the area of the robbery. Given the number of possible variables involved, an officer could scarcely predict that a vehicle used in the robbery would be at place X at exactly Y minutes after the robbery. Thus, the location of the vehicle alone does not “reasonably warrant” the stop.
3) “The suspect vehicle turned southbound onto Highway 10, a possible escape route.” Any route away from the robbery scene was a possible escape route. This factor, therefore, does not create an individualized, articu-lable suspicion.
4) “The suspect was described as wearing dark clothing and the passenger in the suspect vehicle appeared to wear dark clothing.” The communication the officers received actually stated “BLACK CLOTHING, SHIRT WAS A SHINY BLACK.” It is not disputed that Adewale Agunbiade was wearing a navy blue sweater. The officers obviously could not have seen him wearing a “shiny black” shirt and so this factor cannot play any role in justifying the stop.
5) “The suspect was described as having short hair and the passenger in the suspect vehicle had short hair.” Many African American males have short hair, as do some African American females. Short hair is not, in itself, suspicious.
6) “The suspect vehicle was weaving in and out of traffic and traveling faster than the flow of traffic.” This factor may well have been the basis for making a traffic stop. It is also, however, the way many Twin Cities commuters drive. Unless the officers were in hot pursuit, this method of driving does not imply the occupants of the car were armed robbers.
7) “The passenger in the suspect vehicle moved between the seats and looked back at the police car.” This factor approaches the ridiculous. The reasons why a passenger in a car might look back at a following police car are too numerous to contemplate.
*577Even when these reasons are combined with the fact of the Agunbiades’ race, stopping them on suspicion of committing the robbery was still not reasonably warranted. These factors, with the exception of factor 6 which would have warranted a traffic stop, would lead to stopping any African American male who happened to be in the vicinity of the crime. Indeed, counsel for the City confirmed that point at oral argument. I understand the term “reasonably warrant” to require more than some slight possibility that the person stopped may have committed, or is about to commit, a crime. To warrant a Terry stop, factors have to suggest the person stopped is involved in criminal activity. They do not do so here. The court’s analysis implies the factors must actually negate any possible involvement in criminal activity before a Terry stop is unwarranted.
The court’s opinion does not list the most important factor leading to this investigative stop—the fact that most people in Mounds View are white. The Agunbiades were stopped because their race differed from the race which predominates in Mounds View. That most people in Mounds View are white certainly did not give the police a basis for an individualized, articulable suspicion that the Agunbiades were involved in the robbery. This case raises the specter of the police being permitted to stop innocent individuals solely because they happen to be someplace they do not “belong.” The court’s opinion suggests such stops are simply one of the hazards people who belong to an identifiable minority must be willing to accept. It is unimaginable that a white mother driving her thirteen-year-old son to school would have been stopped had the suspect been a white male.
As the Supreme Court said in United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 878, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 2579, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975), reasonableness depends on “a balance between the public interest and the individual’s right to personal security free from arbitrary interference by law officers.” Here, there is nothing to balance—the public simply has no interest in stopping every person of color within range of a place where a person of color is alleged to have committed a crime.