IL: Stop in vicinity of home invasion 3½ hrs after it happened was with reasonable suspicion

Defendant’s stop 3½ hours after and in the vicinity of a home invasion robbery that occurred at 12:30 am was with reasonable suspicion under Terry. Officers had a missing suspect in the robbery and canvassed the area. They “loosened up” the canvas in the hopes that the suspect would come out of hiding. In the hours after the robbery, defendant was the only person to appear in the area. He was close to the description as to clothing, but not exact, and a few blocks away, and the officers suspected he might have discarded outerwear to change his appearance. His story was that he was coming from a friend’s house, but the cuffs of his pants were wet. It was dry that night, but officers walking through grass looking for the suspect also had wet pants cuffs from the dew. That made the officers believe he’d been hiding since the robbery, and that was reasonable suspicion. He was later ID’d. The stop was reasonable. People v. Lawson, 2015 IL App (1st) 120751, 2015 Ill. App. LEXIS 146 (March 6, 2015):
http://www.state.il.us/court/Opinions/AppellateCourt/2015/1stDistrict/1120751.pdf

[*P33] The circumstances of this case establish that the investigative stop was warranted. Specifically, the search for the missing third offender was “loosened” but ongoing when Sergeant Durano drove by defendant, who was walking about three blocks from the scene of the crime and in a completely residential area at about 4 a.m., which was less than four hours after the home invasion had occurred. Moreover, defendant was the only person the police had seen on the street in the area after the offense and apprehension of codefendant Hicks and Thomas, and only 55 minutes had elapsed since the police had loosened the search to try to draw the missing offender out of hiding. In addition, defendant matched the general description of the missing offender, whom Officer Lipinski and the Sayegh family had described as a black male, short, thin, and wearing black or dark clothing. Although defendant asserts the unique shirt he was wearing when he was stopped clearly does not fit the description of the offender, the police knew that the offender had been hiding for a few hours and, like codefendant Hicks, would likely have tried to discard some of the clothing he had worn during the offense to change his appearance. Under these facts, it is inconsequential that defendant no longer wore the long sleeve black hoodie that members of the Sayegh family saw him wear during the offense.

[*P34] In addition, at some point during their encounter with defendant, the police noticed that the hems of his pants were wet, which was more consistent with running and hiding than defendant’s explanation that he had simply walked from a friend’s house, presumably on the sidewalk. The officers had been part of a three hour search that covered backyards, bushes, and lawns, and Sergeant Durano’s pants hems also were wet from the dew. A reasonable inference from this information was that defendant had been hiding in grassy areas. Although defendant was observed and stopped about 3½ hours after the home invasion, that lapse of time is not unreasonably removed in time from the crime because the police saw him flee the house on foot, believed he was hiding in the completely residential area, and searched the area for over two hours before loosening the perimeter of the search area to draw him out of hiding. Moreover, defendant was the first person the police observed on the street since his flight from the crime scene and the police’s immediate apprehension of codefendants Hicks and Thomas. The totality of these facts provided the reasonable articulable suspicion needed to stop defendant. See People v. Ross, 317 Ill. App. 3d 26, 30 (2000) (Terry stop was justified where the defendant was observed walking within minutes of the crime a short distance from the victim’s home and he matched the description of the offender as a black man wearing a blue shirt); People v. Hopkins, 363 Ill. App. 3d 971, 981 (2006) (Terry stop was justified where the defendant was observed within minutes of the crime and a short distance from the crime scene, and he met the description of the offender as a black male in his twenties); People v. Starks, 190 Ill. App. 3d 503, 505 (1989) (Terry stop was justified based on the general description of the suspect and the fact that the officer’s sighting of the suspect was not unreasonably removed in time and space from the crime).