NC: While stop may not have been justified, a furtive movement on seeing the officer toward a likely gun made it justified

While North Carolina law permits concealed carry, statute provides that one carrying a weapon with a permit is required to disclose to an officer addressing him. If the person hasn’t disclosed and makes a furtive movement, the officer can reasonably assume the person is armed. While the stop wasn’t necessarily valid, the furtive movement escalated things, and a frisk was permitted. State v. Sutton, 2014 N.C. App. LEXIS 261 (March 4, 2014)*:

We find that the facts in this case are analogous to those found in Brown. Officer Williams had only a generalized suspicion that the defendant was engaged in criminal activity, based upon the time, place, and the officer’s knowledge that defendant was unfamiliar to the area. Should these factors be found sufficient to justify the seizure of this defendant, such factors could obviously justify the seizure of innocent citizens unfamiliar to the observing officer, who, late at night, happen to be seen standing in an open area of a housing project or walking down a public sidewalk in a high drug area. This would not be reasonable.

Considering the facts relied upon by the officer, together with the rational inferences which the officer was entitled to draw therefrom, we conclude they were inadequate to support the trial court’s conclusion that Officer Williams had a reasonable articulable suspicion that defendant was engaged in criminal activity.

However,

This case is different, as Officer Wells saw defendant “walking normally while swinging his arms[,]” but then he turned and “used his right hand to grab his waistband to clinch an item” which “was an overt act[ion.]” Officer Wells believed “defendant was trying to hide something and his posturing made it apparent that he was concealing something on his person.” Defendant “look[ed] specifically at” Officer Wells, and defendant’s reaction “created some urgency to stop” defendant in Officer Wells in order to identify defendant. Here, the trial court specifically found that defendant engaged in a specific action, “grab[bing] his waistband to clinch an item[,]” which made Officer Wells believe “defendant was trying to hide something and his posturing made it apparent that he was concealing something on his person.” Furthermore, defendant looked at Officer Wells in such a way that his reaction “created some urgency” in Officer Wells that defendant needed to be identified in a high crime area where a list of at least nine pages of individuals were banned. Accordingly, we conclude that the findings of fact do support a conclusion of reasonable suspicion on the part of Officer Wells to stop and frisk defendant as due to the high crime area, Officer Wells’ experience and knowledge of the area, and defendant’s behavior, Officer Wells had a reasonable suspicion both to stop defendant and frisk him for weapons.