Court Opinion

ID: 9499591
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:52:23.532758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:36.190435
License: Public Domain

CLAY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
In United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 232-33, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985) the Supreme Court stated that “the objective reading of [a] flyer or bulletin [ ] determines whether other police officers can defensibly act in reliance on it.” Id. (emphasis added). Today the majority opinion blazes a new trail in our jurisprudence, allowing police officers to rely on communications that do not objectively establish a reasonable suspicion to detain a suspect. Contrary to the majority’s view, the Fourth Amendment interests at stake with respect to qualified immunity require that the conduct of officers be judged by the objective information in their possession. A jury could find that it would have been clear to a reasonable officer in the shoes of Officers Mabry, George or Wheeler that the decision to seize Plaintiff (or order his seizure) was unlawful based on the information in their possession. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent, and would deny qualified immunity so that the case could proceed to trial.
I.
The question of whether Plaintiffs stop was supported by reasonable suspicion or probable cause is normally a question for the jury, unless there exists only one reasonable determination. See Pyles v. Raisor, 60 F.3d 1211, 1215 (6th Cir.1995) (citing Yancey v. Carroll County, 876 F.2d 1238, 1243 (6th Cir.1989)). Likewise, in determining whether Defendants should be granted summary judgment, this court must view all the facts in the light most favorable to Plaintiff. Cockrel v. Shelby County Sch. Dist., 270 F.3d 1036, 1048 (6th Cir.2001) (citing Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986)).
In determining whether qualified immunity is appropriate, courts apply the two-step analysis delineated by the Supreme Court in Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201-02, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001). First, the court must ask whether, “[t]aken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, do the facts alleged show the officer’s conduct violated a constitutional right?” Id. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151. If the defendant has not violated the plaintiffs constitutional right, the inquiry is at an end. Id. However, if the party asserting the injury was deprived of his constitutional rights, then the court must ask if that right was clearly established. “The relevant, dispositive inquiry *852in determining whether a right is clearly established is whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted.” Id. at 202, 121 S.Ct. 2151. In determining whether a reasonable officer would have known that his conduct was unlawful, this Court looks first to the precedents of the Supreme Court, then to case law from this circuit, and finally to decisions from other circuits. Baker v. City of Hamilton, Ohio, 471 F.3d 601, 606 (6th Cir.2006) (quoting Champion v. Outlook Nashville, Inc., 380 F.3d 893, 902 (6th Cir.2004)). In order for a constitutional right to be clearly established, a court need not find that “the very action in question has previously been held unlawful,” but only that the unlawfulness of the action was apparent in light of preexisting law. Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 739, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 153 L.Ed.2d 666 (2002). Even when confronting a novel factual situation, a reasonable officer is “on notice” that his conduct violates clearly established constitutional rights if the state of the law at the time of the alleged depravation provides “fair warning” that his actions are unconstitutional. Id. at 741, 122 S.Ct. 2508.
This case again requires the Court to address problems arising from police communications. Effective police communication is essential to the task of law enforcement, and police must as a general rule be able to trust communications from their fellow officers without probing the source of that information. See Hensley, 469 U.S. at 231, 105 S.Ct. 675. Nevertheless, merely transmitting information from one officer to another does not transform bad information into good; a search that is not justified by “specific and articulable facts,” see Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), does not become justified as such merely because officers have passed on baseless or erroneous information and obfuscated its original source. The Supreme Court in Hensley addressed this problem in the context of applying the exclusionary rule. The Court held that when the reliability of information turns on a flyer or bulletin, “its admissibility turns on whether the officers who issued the flyer possessed probable cause.” 469 U.S. at 231, 105 S.Ct. 675. This rule was necessary because it “minimiz[ed] the volume of information concerning suspects that must be transmitted to other jurisdictions and enable[d] police in one jurisdiction to act promptly in reliance on information from another jurisdiction.” Id. In dicta, the Hensley Court suggested that a different rule would apply in civil suits:
If the flyer has been issued in the absence of a reasonable suspicion, then a stop in the objective reliance upon it violates the Fourth Amendment. In such a situation, of course, the officers making the stop may have a good-faith defense to any civil suit. It is the objective reading of the flyer or bulletin that determines whether other police officers can defensibly act in reliance on it.
Id. at 232-33, 105 S.Ct. 675 (emphasis added) (citations omitted).
In Feathers v. Aey, 319 F.3d 843 (6th Cir.2003), this Court faced the situation contemplated in Hensley. An anonymous caller provided the police with a tip that “a white male with a beard on a porch on North Howard Street” who “looks like he is pretty drunk” had pointed “something” at him. Id. at 846. The police dispatcher instructed the officers to “check for a [suspicious person], supposed to be carrying a weapon ... [he] is on the porch near the corner, it’s a white male with a beard, no shirt.” Id. The officers directed their attention to Feathers, who they felt matched the description, and who was shirtless on a porch on North Howard. Id. They approached Feathers, and the encounter led to a scuffle, after which the officers arrested Feathers. Id. at 846-47. The court *853held that although the anonymous tip did not establish a reasonable suspicion under Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 271, 120 S.Ct. 1375, 146 L.Ed.2d 254 (2000), the officers were nevertheless entitled to qualified immunity based on the dicta in Hensley. Feathers, 319 F.3d at 849-51. Thus, while the totality of the information known to the police did not establish probable cause, the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because “[biased on the information that [the officers] had themselves” their behavior “was not objectively unreasonable.” Id. at 851.
This Court again applied this rule in the recent case of Smoak v. Hall, 460 F.3d 768 (6th Cir.2006). The unfortunate events in Smoak began when James Smoak left his wallet on the roof of his green station wagon while refueling at a gas station. This led a caller to inform the police that she passed a dark green station wagon, “probably going 110 miles an hour,” with “money flying all over the interstate.” Id. at 774. In connection with an investigation of the scene, an officer sent a teletype asking area law enforcement if a “recent robbery” had occurred. Id. A series of miscommunications led officers to believe that the Smoaks had been involved in a robbery, and they were arrested in a “felony stop,”' — a stop where police officers approached with guns and expected to encounter dangerous individuals— which precipitated a series of events in which officers injured James Smoak’s knee and face and fatally shot the Smoaks’ dog. Id. at 775. The court concluded that the high-risk felony stop was reasonable based on the information known to the officers who conducted the stop. Id. at 780. Officer Bush, who had spotted the car and requested the presence of the other officers, had heard reports that the Smoaks’ car was wanted in a “possible robbery.” Id. at 774. And before making the arrest, he had checked with the Nashville Division of the Tennessee Highway Patrol and explicitly confirmed that it wanted the Smoaks’ car stopped. Id. at 774-75. Thus, though not explicit in its analysis, the Smoak court analyzed the information objectively before the officers in determining whether the officers acted reasonably in taking action which constituted a violation of the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.
II.
I agree with the majority that the collective knowledge of the police, viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, establishes that the officers’ seizure of Plaintiff violated his constitutional rights. The next step is to determine, based on the individual knowledge of the police officers, whether their actions violated Plaintiffs clearly established rights — specifically, Plaintiffs Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. U.S. Const, amend. IV. Where an individual is stopped and seized in an encounter that falls short of an arrest, as occurred here, the officers’ actions must be supported by a reasonable suspicion. United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002). A reasonable suspicion requires that, considering the totality of the circumstances, an officer have a “ ‘particularized and objective basis’ for suspecting legal wrongdoing.” Id. (quoting United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989)). Officers must determine whether, based on “the cumulative information available to them,” the likelihood of criminal activity rises to the level of a reasonable suspicion, which is more than a mere hunch but “falls considerably short of satisfying a preponderance of the evidence standard.” Id. at 273-74, 122 S.Ct. 744. Without question, Plaintiffs right to be free from a seizure that was *854not founded on a reasonable suspicion was clearly established under binding precedent. E.g. Terry, 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868. Also undisputed is the fact that Plaintiffs seizure was not based on such a reasonable suspicion. However, because the qualified immunity analysis must be conducted “in light of the specific context of the case,” Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, the Court must inquire as to whether “the contours of the right [were] sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would [have] understood] that what he [was] doing violated] that right.” Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). In this case, a reasonable officer would have known that his actions violated Plaintiffs Fourth Amendment rights.
A. Officers Mabry and George
To reiterate, whether Officers Mabry and George violated Plaintiffs clearly established rights turns on the cumulative information available to them. Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273, 122 S.Ct. 744. The communications that Officers Mabry and George relied upon in detaining Plaintiffs PT Cruiser bear repeating:
[Officer Russell]: you may want to check for that PT Cruiser anywhere from Frebis/Parsons, all the way to Livingston and Parsons.
[Officer Wheeler from the helicopter]: We got a PT Cruiser dark grey, southbound from the Kroger here on Parsons, that’s probably it.
J.A. at 190 (emphasis added).
The fact that the PT Cruiser being searched for was dark gray was not the only reason that the officers had to suspect that Plaintiffs bright-blue PT Cruiser was not the car they were seeking. Officer George testified to the following at his deposition:
Q. Had you been given a license plate number? Was that aired?
A. Yes, but I believe they said it was the wrong plate so don’t go by that information....
Q. Do you remember if you even heard a license plate before the time that you stopped Mr. Humphrey?
A. Before I think they — Like I said, I think they aired it and then they said that was not a good license plate because I think it came back to a different vehicle.
J.A. at 238-39.
The very same communication that informed Officers Mabry and George that the PT Cruiser was “probably it” also informed them that the PT Cruiser was “dark grey.” In the nighttime, from 300 to 500 feet above the ground, a bright-blue PT Cruiser could conceivably appear dark gray; on the ground, Officers Mabry and George could easily discern that the PT Cruiser was in fact bright blue. The officers also knew that the vehicle they were about to detain — with guns drawn — did not have a license plate that matched the suspect’s vehicle. Also undisputed is the fact that Plaintiff was patiently stopped in line of cars; he was not trying to flee or acting in a dangerous manner. Thus, the particularized inquiry is whether it would have been clear to reasonable officers in the situation confronting Officers Mabry and George that a reasonable suspicion did not arise from a single statement — -“that’s probably it” — where the statement contained patently false facts as to the description of the car and no exigent circumstances existed. Our precedents clearly establish that this stop was unlawful.
The following propositions of law are beyond dispute. First, an officer’s reliance on communications from his fellow officers is not per se reasonable; instead such reliance is only reasonable to the extent that it is justified by an objective interpretation of those communications. See Hensley, *855469 U.S. at 232-33, 105 S.Ct. 675; see also Rogers v. Powell, 120 F.3d 446, 455 (3d Cir.1997) (“[W]here a police officer makes an arrest on the basis of oral statements by fellow officers, an officer will be entitled to qualified immunity from liability in a civil rights suit for unlawful arrest provided it was objectively reasonable for him to believe, on the basis of the statements, that probable cause for the arrest existed.”). Second, it is unreasonable for an officer to rely on reported information that he knows to be false or that is contradicted by his direct observations when determining whether probable cause exists. See Fisher v. Harden, 398 F.3d 837, 843 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 126 S.Ct. 828, 163 L.Ed.2d 706 (2005). Third, when determining whether probable cause exists, “an officer cannot look only at the evidence of guilt while ignoring all exculpatory evidence.” Gardenhire v. Schubert, 205 F.3d 303, 318 (6th Cir.2000); Fisher, 398 F.3d at 843. Likewise, whether a reasonable suspicion exists depends on the totality of the circumstances. Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273, 122 S.Ct. 744.
In light of this established precedent, a jury could find that reasonable officers in the position of Officers Mabry and George would have known that it was unlawful to focus solely on Officer Wheeler’s statement “that’s probably it” while ignoring the rest of the information in Officer Wheeler’s statement that suggested that Plaintiffs car was probably not it. It was clearly unlawful for Officers Mabry and George to rely upon the oral communications that were transmitted to them by Officer Wheeler because such reliance was not justified based on an objective review of Officer Wheeler’s communications and the surrounding circumstances. While Officer Wheeler identified with specificity a vehicle to be stopped, his description of the vehicle was patently incorrect as to its color — which was the only characteristic Officer Wheeler used to describe Plaintiffs PT Cruiser. His description of the vehicle was thus contradicted by the direct observations of Officers Mabry and George. And Officer George stated that he knew from previously-aired police reports that the vehicle containing the suspect was dark colored.1 No reasonable officer would have failed to put two and two together: The fact that the suspect’s vehicle was dark colored plus the fact that Officer Wheeler thought that a bright-colored vehicle was dark colored equaled the unavoidable conclusion that Officer Wheeler was mistaken. Nevertheless, the officers ignored this conclusion and erroneously determined that a reasonable suspicion existed to stop Plaintiffs vehicle.
A reasonable jury could conclude that Officers Mabry and George were plainly incompetent for detaining a bright-blue PT Cruiser with the wrong license plate despite the fact that an officer in a helicopter told them that a dark-gray PT Cruiser on the ground was “probably it.” See Scott v. Clay County, 205 F.3d 867, 873 n. 9 (6th Cir.2000). The officers admittedly had no other information causing them to suspect that Plaintiffs vehicle contained Dunson, the suspect being searched for. I would reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Plaintiff — a jury could conclude that the officers’ errors were reasonable — but a jury could also conclude that it was inexcusable for Officers Mabry and George to disregard the exculpatory facts in front of their noses. Courts have been understandably reluctant to shield defendants with qualified immunity where the defendants’ mistakes stem from their cognitive failings as opposed to uncertainty in the law. See, e.g., *856Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551, 564, 567, 124 S.Ct. 1284, 157 L.Ed.2d 1068 (2004) (reversing summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity where “even a cursory reading of the warrant ... would have revealed a glaring deficiency” over the dissent’s protests that “the officer simply made a clerical error”); Dawkins v. Graham, 50 F.3d 532, 534-35 (8th Cir.1995) (denying qualified immunity where officers accidentally searched the wrong house); Bibart v. Stachowiak, 888 F.Supp. 864, 868 (N.D.Ill.1995) (refusing to grant qualified immunity where the dispatcher failed to correctly read a computer screen). Whether Officer Mabry’s and George’s failure to analyze the facts before them rises to the level of incompetence is properly a factual issue for the jury. See Dawkins, 50 F.3d at 534.
Moreover, this is not a case where exigent circumstances justified the officers’ failure to follow up on the incorrect information before them. The opportunity to stop Plaintiff would not have evaporated in the seconds it would have taken Officers Mabry or George to radio back the message, “This PT Cruiser is bright blue. Should we still detain it?” Plaintiff was sitting patiently in a line stopped cars, and gave no indication that he would attempt to evade or elude police. In light of these circumstances, a jury could find that no reasonable officer in the position of Officers Mabry and George would have decided to immediately pursue the stop.
In concluding that no reasonable jury could find that Officers Mabry’s and George’s actions violated Plaintiffs clearly established rights, the majority glosses over the facts known to the officers that suggested that they had the wrong car. According to the majority, the officers had a “sufficient” factual basis to believe that they were in compliance with the law. Majority Op. at 848. This is because, though it is “possible to fault Officers Ma-bry and George for seizing a bright blue PT Cruiser” despite the fact that the transmission asking them to seize it identified the car as dark gray, Officer Wheeler had said that the car was “probably it” and the officers believed that the driver was armed. Majority Op. at 849. This analysis cannot be reconciled with our case law because it allows the police to rely on communications which were objectively and unquestionably false. The majority offers no reason that justifies the officers’ failure to follow up on this incorrect information, despite the fact that the officers had the time and ability to make such an inquiry. While the majority points to many facts that the Columbus Police Department confused over the course of the evening, Majority Op. at 848, it is clear that Officers Mabry and George knew or should have known that the car that Officer Wheeler described from the helicopter was drastically different from the car that they stopped.
Additionally, the majority attempts to dismiss the fact that Plaintiffs license plate bore no resemblance to Dunson’s license plate, arguing that Officers Ma-bry’s and George’s failure to consider such information was reasonable because the license plate number reported by the victim was registered to a different owner. This argument is unconvincing. Plaintiffs license plate number (AUN1NX) shared not a single character in common with the reported license plate number (CFT2945), which, as the officers admit, was aired over the police radio. It is highly unlikely that a witness reporting a license plate number would get seven out of seven characters incorrect; this glaring discrepancy strongly suggested that Plaintiffs vehicle was not Dunson’s vehicle. Unsurprisingly, when the actual vehicle was located, its license plate number (CFP2945) was strikingly similar to that reported by the witness.
*857The majority also asserts that “[a] reasonable officer could have concluded that a suspect driving away from the scene of a crime where a gun was brandished creates a circumstance that is as exigent as a police confrontation with an armed robbery suspect.” Majority Op. at 848 (citing Smoak, 460 F.3d at 774-75). One need not quibble with this statement, as it bears little resemblance to the facts of this case. Plaintiff was not “driving away from the scene of a crime;” he was stopped in a line of parked cars. And as the “crime where a gun was brandished” had occurred over forty minutes ago, this was not a case of hot pursuit. Moreover, Smoak provides only tepid support for Defendants. Officer Bush, a defendant in Smoak, had explicitly confirmed that the Smoaks’ car was the car to be stopped, after following the Smoaks for over eight miles. Smoak, 460 F.3d at 774-75. Officers Mabry and George here could have averted the situation by taking the time to confirm that Plaintiffs vehicle was to be stopped notwithstanding the factual inaccuracies in Officer Wheeler’s communications. This course of action would have taken far less time than that needed for the pursuit in Smoak.
A jury could also conclude that no reasonable officer would have failed to obtain a description of the actual suspect before stopping Plaintiff and forcing him out of his vehicle at gunpoint. The physical descriptions of Plaintiff and the suspect, Dunson, are starkly different. Plaintiff is fifty-two years old; he is five-feet, six-inches tall; he weighs approximately one-hundred and sixty pounds; he had a short, graying beard and a very short hairstyle. On the night in question, Plaintiff was wearing his City of Columbus work clothes and an identification badge. Dunson, as reported by police dispatch, was nineteen years old; approximately six-feet, three-inches tall; he weighed approximately two-hundred and fifteen pounds; he had short, curly hair and a goatee. He was wearing a black jersey with red and white lettering. The only reported similarities between Dunson and Plaintiff were that they were both black males — which, according to Officer George, were the only aspects of the suspect’s physical appearance that he could recall at the time of the arrest, notwithstanding the fact that a more detailed description of Dunson was aired contemporaneously to the radio transmissions describing his race and sex.2 Of course, Officers Mabry and George did not need to rely on their memories for a description of Dunson: With Plaintiffs vehicle sitting in stopped traffic, there was ample time for *858the officers to obtain an accurate description over the radio, which could have been accomplished in a matter of seconds. Yet despite the ease with which Officers Ma-bry or George could have obtained a physical description of Dunson, the majority inexplicably forgives their failure to do so, again glossing over their conduct by stating that it was reasonable. Absolving Officers Mabry and George in this manner is wrong for two reasons. First, their mistake in relying on Officer Wheeler’s communications was patently unreasonable. Complete communications were transmitted, and the officers acted incompetently when they stopped Plaintiff after only hearing — or, more likely, choosing only to focus upon — the very general descriptors of race and sex that matched Plaintiff and Dunson, while ignoring the more specific information of clothing, height, weight, and age that differentiated them. Second, more importantly, Officers Mabry and George acted as no reasonable officer would in failing obtain an available physical description of the suspect before making a hostile and threatening stop, even though there were no exigent circumstances which justified a stop on such flimsy information. This lack of exigent circumstances differentiates the instant case from both Feathers and Smoak, where the police were provided with information from witnesses suggesting exigent circumstances requiring immediate action. See Feathers, 319 F.3d at 846 (officers were face to face with suspect who, despite repeated requests, refused to keep his hands out of his pockets); Smoak, 460 F.3d at 774-75 (officer was following suspect’s vehicle and confirmed that the vehicle and its occupants were suspected of a robbery). Unlike Feathers and Smoak, a reasonable jury in the instant case could find that Officers Mabry’s and George’s conduct would be clearly unlawful to a reasonable officer in the situation they confronted. See Saucier, 533 U.S. at 202.
B. Officer Wheeler
Although Officer Wheeler presents a closer case, a reasonable jury could find that Officer Wheeler violated Plaintiffs clearly established rights by misidentifying his PT Cruiser. Immediately preceding Officer Wheeler’s decision to have Plaintiffs PT Cruiser detained, the following transmissions were broadcast:
[Officer Smith]: 116 — you should advise our suspect on our 33 run was just seen in the PT Cruiser Westbound on Frebis from Ohio.
Police: 136 — Yes ma’am, I’ll go eastbound on Frebis from Parsons.
[Officer Russell]: you may want to check for that PT Cruiser anywhere from Frebis/Parsons, all the way to Livingston and Parsons.
J.A. at 190.
The officers thus delineated a rectangular area in which the helicopter should have looked for the PT Cruiser. This area was bounded by Parsons Avenue (which runs north/south) and Livingston Avenue (which runs east/west) in the northwest; and Frebis Avenue (which runs east/west) and Ohio Avenue (which runs north/south) in the southeast. This area is approximately two-thirds of a square mile, and contains several major roads in southern Columbus. The address where Plaintiffs PT Cruiser was spotted was two blocks outside of this area.
Worse still, the objective information available to Officer Wheeler made it highly unlikely that the PT Cruiser he identified was the PT Cruiser that was described by Officer Russell. At 10:33 p.m., the PT Cruiser that Officer Wheeler was advised contained the suspect was seen “Westbound on Frebis from Ohio.” Next, a second officer advised that he would head *859“eastbound on Frebis from Parsons”— meaning that he was heading directly to the suspect’s vehicle. Nevertheless, within a minute, and without hearing anymore from the officer heading eastbound on Frebis, Officer Wheeler honed in on a car that was leaving the parking lot of a grocery store that was two-thirds of a mile away from where the suspected PT Cruiser was purportedly being driven.
At his deposition, Officer Wheeler admitted that he did not instruct Officers Mabry and George to pull over Plaintiffs PT Cruiser because of any characteristic about that PT Cruiser (beyond its incorrectly-identified dark color); instead, Officer Wheeler suggested that he would have focused on any PT Cruiser he observed in the general vicinity — how far outside the reported area is unknown, as Officer Wheeler had already ventured outside of the area in which he was instructed to look for the PT Cruiser. As Officer Wheeler testified at his deposition:
Q.... [I]f you had seen two dark PT Cruisers on that street, would it have been your thought that proper police procedure would be to stop them both and check?
A. That’s correct. Had I seen two PT Cruisers on the Kroger lot, I would have aired both of them and attempted to get both of them stopped, based on the PT Cruiser and what I thought was gray from the air.
J.A. at 258-59.
As the majority correctly concludes, a reasonable suspicion requires that an officer point to a particularized and objective basis that “leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that erimi-nal activity may be afoot.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 30-31, 88 S.Ct. 1868. There is little dispute here that this standard was not satisfied with respect to Plaintiffs vehicle. Nevertheless, the majority concludes that it- was reasonable for Officer Wheeler to order Plaintiffs car detained because it was in the “limited geographic area where he had just been instructed to look.” Majority Op. at 859.3 This Court has never held, however, that any common car of the same model and general color in a large geographic area can be seized or searched where officers have a reasonable suspicion for searching a specific, single vehicle — to do so would violate Terry’s clearly established requirement that a stop be justified by particularized and objective facts. Our cases upholding vehicle stops have consistently required a particularized identification of the suspect’s vehicle. See, e.g., United States v. Marxen, 410 F.3d 326, 331 (6th Cir.2005), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 126 S.Ct. 1445, 164 L.Ed.2d 143 (2006) (reasonable to stop vehicle used as getaway car where police had a description of the vehicle including license plate); Houston v. Clark County Sherif Deputy John Does 1-5, 174 F.3d 809, 814 (6th Cir.1999) (reasonable to stop cars based on mistaken car-counting practice). Here, a reasonable jury could certainly conclude that no reasonable officer confronting the objective facts known to Officer Wheeler would have considered it lawful to instruct other officers that Plaintiffs car was “probably” the car they were seeking. The geographic area in which Officer Wheeler was looking was large — the delineated area was approximately two-thirds of a square mile, and Officer Wheeler was additionally searching outside of this area. *860The ear Officer Wheeler focused upon was two-thirds of a mile away from the area where the suspect was seen one minute prior, and was leaving a grocery store parking lot. Moreover, there was another officer on the road on which the suspect was purportedly driving between the suspect and the grocery store. That a suspect left the major road upon which he was traveling, zipped through the back roads of the city, covered two-thirds of a mile in less than a minute and then inexplicably entered the parking lot of a grocery store is a factual scenario that defies belief. To look at these facts and assume, as Officer Wheeler did, that the car leaving the grocery store was “probably” the suspect’s car was plainly incompetent police work.
Of course, to say that Officer Wheeler violated Plaintiffs clearly established rights in radioing that Plaintiffs car was “probably it” does not mean that Officer Wheeler was powerless to investigate Plaintiffs PT Cruiser. Had Officer Wheeler, for example, told officers on the ground that Plaintiffs car should be investigated, following that information with a description of the suspect, the officers on the ground could have easily dispelled any suspicions that they had concerning Plaintiffs vehicle without effectuating a stop. Such a course of action would have been entirely proper — and would not have resulted in a violation of Plaintiffs Fourth Amendment rights. Law enforcement officers undoubtedly have an interest in investigating any potential lead to arrest a suspect who has committed a dangerous crime. But the intrusiveness of a stop cannot be gainsaid, and it is the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of reasonable suspicion that protects citizens from unnecessary intrusions when law enforcement interests are not sufficiently weighty to tip the balance of the Fourth Amendment’s scales. See Terry, 392 U.S. at 24-27, 88 S.Ct. 1868. In this case, a jury could find that Officer Wheeler violated Plaintiffs clearly established rights by casting too wide a net in response to the objective information he received.
III.
Because a reasonable jury could find that Officers Wheeler, Mabry, and George violated Plaintiffs clearly established rights, I would allow this case to be submitted to a jury. While the police need not cross-examine their fellow officers while pursuing a suspect, they also cannot turn a blind eye towards relevant information that dispels a reasonable suspicion. Under the second prong of the Saucier test, no reasonable officer would have thought that a person driving a bright-blue PT Cruiser and fitting the physical description of Humphrey could be Dunson, the man for whom the police were actually searching. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

. In his affidavit, Officer George stated that he did "recall hearing that there was a gun used in criminal activity on board a dark PT Cruiser ...” J.A. at 71 (emphasis added).

. Officer George stated that the only physical information he knew about the suspect at the time he stopped Plaintiff was that the suspect was a black male. In his affidavit, Officer George stated that he did "recall hearing that there was a gun used in criminal activity on board a dark PT Cruiser with a male black driver.” J.A. at 71. Similarly, at his deposition, Officer George, when asked if he had heard anything "having to do with [the suspect’s] race or age or height or weight or any of those characteristics” responded "[j]ust that it was a male black.” J.A. at 238.
The record reflects the following description of the suspect was first aired:
Dispatcher: If you guys can help me out on 11 precinct on a 33 run to 795 Thurman Avenue, male black, 6'3", in a grey Chrysler, CFT2945, has a 33 out and is threatening caller’s father. Police: 1311 copy; 133 I copy.
Dispatcher: Be advised this is going to be the sister’s ex-boyfriend, his name is Greg Dunson. He left his car there and just now took off walking down the street, I don’t have any clothing on him. Police: 133, what's the cross street?
Dispatcher: Between Gilbert and 22nd. I have a description on him now, he is wearing a black jersey with white and letter, and red lettering.
J.A. at 178.

. The majority’s description of the geographic area as "limited’’ is deceptive. While the officers instructing Officer Wheeler where to search did demarcate limits, as discussed above, Plaintiff’s car was outside of those limits when Officer Wheeler identified it. If Officer Wheeler’s search was in fact "limited” in his own mind to a specific geographic area, those limits had no basis in the communications he received from his fellow officers.