Court Opinion

ID: 9796385
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:56:29.701635+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:11.765437
License: Public Domain

ARMSTRONG, J.,
dissenting.
An Oregon police officer can lawfully search for and seize weapons from a person when,
“during the course of a lawful encounter with [the person], the officer develops a reasonable suspicion, based upon specific and articulable facts, that the [person] might pose an immediate threat of serious physical injury to the officer or to others then present.”
State v. Bates, 304 Or 519, 524, 747 P2d 991 (1987). That means that the officer must reasonably suspect that the person is armed with a weapon that could be used to inflict serious physical injury and that the person might use the weapon against the officer or others who are present. Because the majority in this case upholds a search of defendant that, met neither of those requirements, I respectfully dissent.
Defendant, an 18-year-old male, was in the parking lot of a Beaverton apartment complex with two other people just after midnight on August 19, 1999. One of the people, a 21-year-old female, was seated in a parked car. Defendant and the other person, a 17-year-old male, were standing near her on the driver’s side of the car. A Beaverton police officer, Brown, drove her marked patrol car through the parking lot and saw the three people. She suspected that they were *438under 18 years of age and were therefore committing a curfew violation by being outside at that time, so she parked and got out of her patrol car to investigate the suspected violation. As she did that, she called the Beaverton police dispatcher and asked to have another Beaverton police officer sent to assist her.
Brown approached the people by walking up to the passenger’s side of the parked car. As she did that, she looked inside the car with a flashlight and saw a bag containing 40-ounce bottles of alcohol, which led her to suspect that one or more of the people was guilty of a liquor violation. She also saw that defendant was wearing clothing that suggested that he was a member of the 18th Street gang, a gang known to operate locally, and that the 17-year-old was wearing gang-style clothing and had a gang-related tattoo.
Brown asked the people for their identification. Defendant and the 21-year-old each gave her an Oregon driver license or identification card. The 17-year-old did not have any identification, but he gave Brown his name and date of birth. Using a portable radio and the identification information, Brown asked the Beaverton dispatcher if there were outstanding warrants for any of the people. The dispatcher reported that there were none but that defendant was listed as having run away from home. Brown asked defendant about that, and he explained that his parents had reported him as a runaway when he was younger but that the report now had no relevance because he was 18 years old. Defendant also told Brown that he lived in the apartment complex, but he would not tell her the apartment unit in which he lived.
Based on the information that she had received, Brown concluded that she had no basis to cite or arrest defendant or the 21-year-old for any violation. She did conclude, however, that she had a basis to cite the 17-year-old for a curfew violation. She returned the identification to defendant and the 21-year-old but did not tell them the conclusions that she had reached about possible charges.
Two backup police officers had arrived by that time, and Brown asked a male officer, Cockreham, to conduct a patdown search of defendant for weapons. Cockreham first *439asked defendant if he would consent to a search. When defendant said that he would not, Cockreham proceeded to pat him down. In doing so, Cockreham found and took from defendant a handgun that was in the waistband of defendant’s pants. The officers arrested defendant for unlawful possession of a weapon and took the 17-year-old into custody for a curfew violation.
The majority concludes that the police acted lawfully in searching defendant for weapons. In its view, the officers had sufficient information to lead them reasonably to suspect that defendant carried a concealed weapon, most probably a gun, and that he might use it against them.
On the first point, the majority relies on the fact that defendant was wearing clothing that suggested that he was affiliated with the 18th Street gang, that the clothing was baggy enough to conceal a weapon easily, and that the officers knew from their training and experience that members of that gang often carried guns for protection. Although I agree with the majority and the concurrence that the question is a close one, I am not persuaded that that evidence was sufficient to give the officers a reasonable basis to believe that defendant was a member of the 18th Street gang who, because of that membership, was reasonably likely to be carrying a gun.
We have twice before confronted cases in which police officers conducted patdowns for weapons of people who were or appeared to be members of motorcycle gangs. In the first, State v. Redmond, 114 Or App 197, 834 P2d 516 (1992), an officer stopped three members of the Brother Speed motorcycle club. The officer patted down one of the three for weapons, which led to the discovery of weapons and drugs. As support for the patdown, the state relied on training that the officer had received that indicated that members of motorcycle clubs such as Brother Speed often carry weapons. Although we upheld the patdown because, before the officer conducted it, he saw that the defendant was armed with a weapon, we rejected the idea that knowledge that motorcycle club members often are armed was sufficient to create a reasonable belief that the defendant, who was a member of such a club, was armed. Id. at 201.
*440The second case, State v. Reinhardt, 140 Or App 557, 916 P2d 313 (1996), rev dismissed, 327 Or 521 (1998), involved the execution of a search warrant at a house where police officers handcuffed the defendant in order to conduct the search. Among other reasons, they did so because the defendant had tattoos and was dressed in “biker” clothing. From their training and experience, they knew that members of “outlaw” motorcycle gangs often are armed, so they were concerned that he might have a weapon that he could use against them. We rejected that evidence as providing a reasonable basis to suspect that the defendant was armed because we concluded that the defendant’s appearance could not reasonably lead to a belief that he was a member of an “outlaw” motorcycle gang. Id. at 563. We could as well have rejected the evidence for the same reason that we rejected the adequacy of the evidence about motorcycle clubs in Redmond. There, the officer’s training indicated that motorcycle club members often carry weapons. Other than a change in terminology, that is no different from the training and experience that indicated to the officers in Reinhardt that “outlaw” motorcycle gang members often carry weapons.
Here, the state relies on the officers’ training and experience that indicates that members of a particular gang, the 18th Street gang, often carry weapons. I do not see how training and experience that indicates that members of a particular gang often carry weapons is different from training and experience that indicates that members of a particular type of gang often carry weapons. In either case, the state seeks to rely on the syllogism that people of a particular group often carry weapons, that the defendant appears to be a member of that group, and that it is therefore reasonable to suspect that the defendant is carrying a weapon. I believe that our cases reject that syllogism and require officers to identify something more than apparent membership in a group whose members often carry weapons in order to have a reasonable basis to suspect that a person is carrying a weapon.
Furthermore, even if the officers had a reasonable basis to suspect that defendant was carrying a weapon, they did not have a reasonable basis to suspect that he might use it against them. Although Brown asked for a backup officer *441as she began her investigation of the three people for curfew violations and, later, a liquor violation, she did not wait for the backup officers to arrive before conducting the investigation. All of the people were cooperative throughout the encounter and did nothing to create any concern that they might act to harm the officers. Nevertheless, midway through the encounter, the officers patted defendant down for weapons. According to the trial court and the majority, defendant was free to walk away from the officers at that point in the encounter, so his decision to stay bears on whether the officers reasonably could suspect that he might pose a threat to them.
I respectfully disagree. In context, defendant’s continued presence added nothing to any threat that he might pose. The three people whom Brown approached were all socializing around a parked car at midnight on a summer night in the parking lot of an apartment complex in which defendant lived. They apparently were not going anywhere when Brown approached them. Brown asked them for identification, which only two of them could supply. Brown’s request for identification did not convert the encounter into a stop. See, e.g., State v. Warner, 136 Or App 475, 477-80, 901 P2d 940 (1995). Consequently, the three people were free to leave at any point in the encounter. Brown returned the identification to the two people from whom she had received it, but she did not say anything to them about her intention to pursue only a citation of the 17-year-old for a curfew violation. Because the 17-year-old did not have identification, there was no reason for defendant or the 21-year-old to interpret the return of their identification as signifying any change in the nature of the encounter. In other words, nothing about what Brown said or did indicated that the 17-year-old was being treated differently from the others.
In addition, the three people were not going anywhere when they were accosted by Brown, so there was no reason for them to be expected to do anything except to wait for the officers to leave so that they could continue their social encounter. Consequently, defendant’s continued presence at the encounter did not change anything. He was no more a threat to the officers at the midpoint of the encounter than he was at the beginning. In fact, his cooperative attitude and *442behavior undercut whatever generalized threat Brown or the other officers might have perceived him to represent at the outset of their encounter.1
Finally, it would not be reasonable for the officers to believe that defendant might act to harm them in order to prevent them from citing the 17-year-old and taking him into custody for a curfew violation, yet that is the concern that led them to pat defendant down. We should not uncharitably second-guess officers for actions that they take to protect themselves against harm, but nothing in the evidence in this case suggests that the officers could reasonably have suspected that defendant might use a weapon to harm them. Consequently, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion that the officers conducted a lawful patdown of defendant.

 The majority contends that my discussion of the facts of the encounter is not faithful to our task on review because, in the majority’s view, I draw inferences about the subjective beliefs of defendant and his companions that are not compelled by the evidence and that are inconsistent with the trial court’s ruling. 186 Or App at 430-31. The majority misunderstands the point of the discussion. It is not addressed to the subjective beliefs of the participants in the encounter. Rather, it is addressed to the facts in the record that bear on what the officers could reasonably believe at that stage of the encounter. The issue for the trial court and us is whether the officers’ belief about the danger that defendant posed was objectively reasonable. My discussion of the facts is addressed solely to that issue. In the same vein, the majority questions whether I intend to challenge the officers’ subjective belief that defendant posed a threat to them at the time that they conducted the search. 186 Or App at 432 n 7. I do not.