Court Opinion

ID: 9481323
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:15:21.05293+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:14.154728
License: Public Domain

McMILLIAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I believe the seizure occurred when Officer Benning, with his weapon drawn, approached Peoples and Skinner and identified himself as a police officer. See United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1877, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980) (display of weapon indicates seizure). At oral argument the government acknowledged that the seizure occurred at that time. It was nowhere suggested in the record that Peoples did not see the weapon. I cannot agree with the majority that there was no seizure until the specific order to stop was given.
When Peoples was thus seized, the facts known to the officers, and any reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom, were not sufficient to have aroused a reasonable ar-ticulable suspicion that “criminal activity may be afoot.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1884, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 *1088(1968). The fact that an anonymous telephone caller thinks someone looks suspicious does not provide the basis for even a limited investigative stop by the police. Here the only additional facts were that Peoples and Skinner stepped into the shadows when a vehicle with its lights on passed by, and that Peoples handed a brown paper bag he was carrying to Skinner who looked inside it. This conduct was insufficient to provide the officers with the necessary reasonable suspicion. The officers did not testify that based on their experience, this conduct indicated criminal drug activity. See United States v. Ilazi, 730 F.2d 1120, 1125 (8th Cir.1984).
Accordingly, I would reverse the conviction.