Extended detention was reasonable

United States v. Samilton, 2022 WL 17817883 (10th Cir. December 20, 2022) (W.D. OK.): The panel finds an officer had reasonable suspicion for an extended detention although in his repeated searches of Samilton, the car in which he was riding and the area around the car, the officer found nothing incriminating. Of course, at some point he did find something incriminating (19 minutes after the detention began). The facts: A hotel clerk called the police because a man sitting in a car in the hotel parking lot had a pistol in his hand and had been waving it around inside the car. The clerk also had seen the man knocking on several hotel room doors and did not believe he was a guest. A black woman sat in the driver’s seat of this four-door, dark-colored sedan. The officer that approached the car partially corroborated the clerk’s description of the occupants – a black female driver and a bearded man in the passenger seat. The panel noted the clerk said the man was white, but he actually was black – evidently a discrepancy of no consequence. The officer said the hotel was in a “high crime area” in which 3 to 5 robberies per week were not uncommon. When he walked up to the car he saw the passenger make “furtive movements,” as if he was “trying to hide a firearm.” But he also heard a noise like a firearm or magazine that had been thrown out the window and hit the pavement. In the panel’s view, what the officer did next was simply diligently pursue a means of investigation. Searching Samilton, the car, and the area around the car, were means likely to confirm or dispel his suspicions quickly. The panel said the detention was justified because at each turn, the officer’s suspicion that there was a gun somewhere was confirmed by what he observed. First, the panel said, the hotel clerk had witnessed conduct that was consistent with criminal behavior – a man brandishing a gun in a car and knocking on hotel rooms. Second, Samilton’s “furtive movements” suggested he was trying to hide something and were inconsistent with someone who was permitted to carry a firearm. Third, when the officer asked whether there was a gun in the car, his answers were evasive. Apparently, when he should have said, “no,” Samilton told the officer, “you already checked me,” and “I don’t have no gun.” Fourth, the officer had reason to believe there was a gun nearby; he heard the sound of a gun or magazine hitting the pavement, the driver admitted there was a gun on the passenger side of the car and the officer found a 9 millimeter round on the floor near the passenger seat. Fifth, the officer was told by dispatch that Samilton was a felon, implying that there was a reason for him to have hidden the gun. The panel concluded that just because the officer didn’t find the gun right away, does not mean he wasn’t diligent. Given all these suspicious factors, he had enough to hold Samilton until he found the gun under the passenger seat.