United States v. Coleman

496 F.Supp.3d 1061

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff

v.Gjervontez COLEMAN, Defendant

Criminal Action No. 3:19-cr-223-RGJ

United States District Court, W.D. Kentucky, Louisville Division.

Signed October 22, 2020

Thomas W. Dyke, U.S. Attorney Office, Louisville, KY, for Plaintiff.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Rebecca Grady Jennings, District Judge

This matter is before the Court on Defendant Gjervontez Coleman's Motion to Suppress Evidence. [DE 12]. The Court held an evidentiary hearing. [DE 20]. This matter is ripe. [DE 14; DE 22; DE 25]. For the reasons below, the Court DENIES the Motion to Suppress. [DE 12].

I. BACKGROUND

On the evening of July 15, 2019, Officer Clayton Poff was patrolling the Victory Park neighborhood¹ of Louisville, Kentucky when he "overhear[d] on [his police] radio a call ... regarding a red Pontiac." [DE 20 at 60]. From the call, Officer Poff learned that two African-American men in a red Pontiac were involved in an attempted shooting in the Victory Park neighborhood. [Id. at 76; Exhibit 1, 00:00-00:20]. Poff further learned that the passenger, who was wearing a mask, "tr[ied] to shoot a gun, but it jammed." Id.

Within minutes of the call, Officer Poff saw a red Pontiac. Id. at 82. After following it for several blocks, Poff stopped the car "solely on the fact that it's a red Pontiac ... and [n]ot for any driving issues." Id. at 79. The car pulled into the parking lot of an apartment complex. Id. at 66. Because the car's windows were "extremely tinted," Officer Poff was unable to "ID any of the individuals in the car" until he walked up to the driver's side window. Id. at 70; Id. at 79. Officer Poff leaned next to the driver's side window and looked inside. [Garcia Body Camera, 00:00-00:25]² . Inside the car, Officer Poff saw five African-Americans: a female driver, a male front-seat passenger, and Coleman and two women in the backseat. Id. ; [DE 20 at 81].

Once "enough officers"³ were on scene, Officer Poff asked the occupants to exit the vehicle because he "wanted to continue the investigation" and he thought "it would be safer and easier way to go ahead and get them out of the vehicle so [he] could talk to them separately to try to figure out if this was the vehicle that was used in the crime at Victory Park." [DE 20 at 68]. By this time, a crowd of people had gathered in the parking lot. [Garcia Body Camera, 03:30-03:50].

The front-seat passenger, who had a blue bandana in his front waistband, exited the car first. Id. at 00:40-00:55. Officer Garcia patted him down and he was unarmed. Id. As Coleman "hestitant[ly]"⁴ exited the car, Officer Davis "noticed a bulge" in his waistband. [DE 20 at 94]. When Officer Davis patted him down, the "bulge" in Coleman's waistband "felt like a handgun or a handle of a handgun." Id. at 95. Officer Davis placed Coleman's "hands behind his back, detained him by placing him in handcuffs. And once [Davis] lifted up his shirt, the gun actually fell through [Coleman's] pants." Id. After the officers arrested and Mirandized Coleman, he admitted that the gun was his and that he had it for a week. Id. at 73.

II. DISCUSSION

Coleman moves to suppress evidence obtained after he was stopped by the police, arguing that, even if the officers had reasonable suspicion to stop his vehicle, they did not have reasonable suspicion to further detain him after they determined that he and the other occupants of the vehicle did not match the dispatcher's description of the suspects. [DE 12 at 35-36]. Coleman also moves to suppress his statements as fruit of the poisonous tree of the illegal stop and search. Id.

A. The Officers Did Not Violate Coleman's Fourth Amendment Rights⁵

1. The officers had reasonable suspicion to stop the red Pontiac

"The police are permitted ‘to stop a person when the officer has reasonable, articulable suspicion that the person has been, is, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity.’ " United States v. Slater , 209 F. App'x 489, 495 (6th Cir. 2006) (quoting United States v. Hensley , 469 U.S. 221, 227, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985) ). Reasonable suspicion cannot be based on "inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or ‘hunch,’ but [on] the specific reasonable inferences which [a police officer] is entitled to draw from the facts in light of his experience." Terry v. Ohio , 392 U.S. 1, 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). In evaluating whether an officer had reasonable suspicion, courts look at the "totality of the circumstances" and consider "all of the information available to law enforcement officials at the time." United States v. Urrieta , 520 F.3d 569, 573 (6th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

A few minutes after the dispatch call, Officer Poff saw a red Pontiac pass him in the same high-crime neighborhood where the attempted shooting allegedly occurred. [DE 20 at 61]. The descriptor—"red Pontiac"—was particular enough to justify a stop based on a reasonable inference that its occupants were the same individuals who were involved in the attempted shooting in that same neighborhood just minutes before. See United States v. McCauley , 548 F.3d 440, 444-46 (6th Cir. 2008) (finding a description of "an armed black male driving a small black SUV" was sufficiently particularized and holding that the officer's stop of a car matching that description in an area close to the car's last known location was supported by reasonable suspicion); United States v. Molina , 226 F. App'x 523, 528 (6th Cir. 2007) (finding a description of the suspect's vehicle as a "small black Nissan" sufficiently particular and holding that reasonable suspicion existed where, a minute after dispatch relayed that suspect in a drive-by shooting would be driving a "small, black Nissan," police stopped a car matching that description near the reported scene); United States v. Long , 464 F.3d 569, 571-575 (6th Cir. 2006) (holding unidentified citizen's report that three men in a black and gray Ford Ranger pickup truck were robbing his neighbor's house supported stop of a Ford Ranger matching the description driving away from the area where the call had originated); United States v. Hurst , 228 F.3d 751, 757 (6th Cir. 2000) (holding stop of a dark-blue Mercury Cougar containing three passengers was reasonable based on reports of a dark-colored, two-seat Ford Thunderbird fleeing the scene of a burglary). For these reasons, the Court finds that the officers had reasonable, articulable suspicion to stop the red Pontiac.

2. The officers did not exceed the permissible scope of the investigate stop

Because the initial stop was permissible, the Court next examines "whether the degree of intrusion ... was reasonably related in scope to the situation at hand, which is judged by examining the reasonableness of the officials’ conduct given their suspicions and the surrounding circumstances." United States v. Davis , 430 F.3d 345, 354 (6th Cir. 2005) (quoting United States v. Garza , 10 F.3d 1241, 1245 (6th Cir. 1993) ). While "there is no rigid time limitation on the lawfulness of a Terry stop," the court must "examine whether the police diligently pursued a means of investigation that was likely to confirm or dispel their suspicions quickly, during which time it was necessary to detain the defendant." United States v. Orsolini , 300 F.3d 724, 730 (6th Cir. 2002) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The United States argues that "the record reflects that the officers diligently pursued the least intrusive means of investigation. Each occupant was asked to step from the vehicle. Only the males were checked for weapons, since the radio call stated that a male had brandished the firearm. Coleman was the last person patted down, resulting in the discovery of the firearm. The discovery of the firearm occurred approximately three minutes after the red Pontiac parked." [DE 22 at 123]. Coleman, on the other hand, argues that it was unreasonable for Poff to detain him after the stop: "Upon approaching the red Pontiac, Officer Poff very quickly realized that this was not the vehicle involved moments earlier in an attempted shooting. How do we know this to be true? Because everything that Officer Poff (and the other LMPD officers involved) said and did demonstrate it to be true." [DE 25 at 135-136].

The Court finds that the officers "diligently pursued a means of investigation that was likely to confirm or dispel their suspicions quickly, during which time it was necessary to detain the defendant." Orsolini , 300 F.3d at 730. Upon approaching the red Pontiac, Officer Poff determined that there were five people in it, not two as reported by dispatch. He also discovered that an African-American woman, not an African-American man, was the driver. But these discrepancies do not "defeat the assessment" that the officers "had reasonable grounds to investigate further" because the "discrepancy ... might reasonably be explained in any number of ways." Hurst , 228 F.3d at 757. The red Pontiac's windows were tinted and the attempted shooting occurred near sunset. [Luckett Body Camera, 00:34-00:36]. Dark windows and diminished daylight can reasonably explain why the initial caller to dispatch did not see the three other people in the vehicle, especially as they were found in the backseat. It likewise reasonably explains why the caller may have misidentified the driver as a man. Despite these discrepancies, the officers had a right to detain the occupants of the red Pontiac after the stop. See United States v. Jackson , 188 F. App'x 403, 415 (6th Cir. 2006) ("Minor mistakes, such as the description of a suspect vehicle, its direction of travel, or a suspect's clothing, do not automatically vitiate an officer's finding of reasonable suspicion"). Officer Poff testified that he wanted to speak with the occupants of the vehicle "separately to try to figure out if this was the vehicle that was used in the crime at Victory Park." [DE 20 at 68]. Because Coleman could not be excluded...