AZ somehow finds RS from flight of “dangerous” companion to defendant doing nothing

Defendant was in a high crime area and his suspected “dangerous” companions fled. That left him doing nothing and he got frisked. Somehow, this is reasonable suspicion. State v. Primous, 2016 Ariz. App. LEXIS 77 (May 5, 2016). And this is troubling:

P10 An individual’s presence in a dangerous neighborhood is not, by itself, sufficient to establish a reasonable, particularized suspicion that he is committing or has committed a crime. Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 52 (1979). That was the situation when Ohland and Casillas first approached Defendant. Defendant was seated with a child in front of a residence, in daylight hours, engaged in conversation with a few others. He exhibited no evasive or aggressive behavior, was not visibly armed, and neither he nor, apparently, the others in the group matched the description of the dangerous person the officers sought. His mere presence outside of a camera-outfitted apartment in a high-crime neighborhood was insufficient to create a reasonable suspicion that he was committing or had committed a crime.

P11 But then one of Defendant’s companions fled, and another was discovered to have a small baggie of marijuana in his pocket. Unprovoked flight “is not necessarily indicative of wrongdoing, but it is certainly suggestive of such,” and it may be considered in connection with the character of the neighborhood. Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 124 (2000). And knowing possession of marijuana is often a crime. A.R.S. § 13-3405(A)(1). The question is whether the suggestion of wrongdoing created by Defendant’s companions justified a frisk of Defendant, who remained seated and gave no indication of complicity in either the flight or the drug possession.

. . .

P14 Despite Defendant’s passivity and the absence of any objective evidence of criminal collusion with his companions, we cannot say that Ohland unreasonably suspected that Defendant might be armed and dangerous. Ohland knew that he was in a dangerous neighborhood looking for a dangerous individual who dealt drugs and weapons. He knew that Defendant had just been talking with several men, one of whom had fled without provocation and another of whom possessed marijuana. He also knew that he was in view of cameras and that he and Casillas were outnumbered by Defendant and his group. On these facts, Ohland justifiably frisked Defendant for weapons. And under the “plain feel” doctrine, he lawfully removed the baggie of marijuana from Defendant’s pocket. See Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 375 (1993) (“If a police officer lawfully pats down a suspect’s outer clothing and feels an object whose contour or mass makes its identity immediately apparent, there has been no invasion of the suspect’s privacy beyond that already authorized by the officer’s search for weapons; if the object is contraband, its warrantless seizure would be justified by the same practical considerations that inhere in the plain-view context.”). The superior court did not err by denying Defendant’s motion to suppress the marijuana.