Description and Seizure
Corpus Christi police were given information about a suspect during a roundup of gang members with outstanding warrants. The information described the suspect only as a “Hispanic male” who had “run from officers” on a “bicycle with large handlebars” in the “area of Leopard and Up River” at some unspecified time in the past. They had nothing else to go on. But they someone who fit: Andres Alvarez, who was riding a bike with large handlebars in the area. A frisk revealed he had a revolver and some ammunition. The officers later figured out he was not the Hispanic male they were looking for. But the Government charged Alvarez with being a felon in possession of a firearm anyway. He moved to suppress the evidence against him. The district court said the officers had had reasonable suspicion for the stop.
The Fifth Circuit vacated Alvarez’s, holding that the officers’ open-ended description would effectively authorize random police stops. The Court remanded the case over a stinging dissent.
A judicially created exception to the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against warrantless seizures allows officers to conduct brief investigatory stops based on reasonable suspicion that the person is engaged in criminal activity or wanted in connection with a completed felony. Reasonable suspicion “must exist before the initiation of an investigatory detention.” It a low threshold, but it still “must be founded on specific and articulable facts rather than on a mere suspicion or ‘hunch.’”
After reviewing past cases, the Court concluded the officers’ stop of Alvarez was not supported by reasonable suspicion because the case involved an outstanding warrant—completed criminal activity—so the information they had had to have a higher level of specificity than if concerning an ongoing crime. The physical description of “Hispanic male” was too general and vague in Corpus Christi. The same was true of the bicycle. Other than “large handlebars,” there were no other identifiers. And there was no information about when the suspect had been seen in the area identified. It was not enough to say it was a high-crime area. Thus, the district court erred by denying Alvarez’s motion to suppress.