CA4: Two successive computer checks took a while, but they were reasonable; def finally admitted to a gun during “small talk” with officer at window

Defendant’s stop was a bit long, but not unreasonably long, and it wasn’t delayed by the officers. Running the driver and defendant passenger’s name through NCIC produced an alert on them because of past events, and the court never says this alert was reasonable suspicion, because it wouldn’t be. However, that led to running names through a local system which gathered all the similar names of people associated with them. That took a little longer. While the officer in the car was waiting, he was filling out a traffic citation. The other officer was standing at the passenger window just making “small talk” and asked about drugs and guns. After having asked four times during the stop, defendant admitted a weapon. The computer search and the small talk were not unreasonable, considering the fact the occupants were known to the police from past encounters. Standing next to the car to watch them was reasonable for officer safety. United States v. Hill, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 5537 (4th Cir. March 30, 2017):

We further conclude that none of the officers’ individual actions suggested a lack of diligence in pursuing the stop or were otherwise unreasonable. Although Officer Taylor could have executed the stop without using [the local database] PISTOL, and instead have relied exclusively on the DMV and NCIC databases, his decision to search this additional database did not violate Hill’s rights under the Fourth Amendment. As noted above, the Fourth Amendment “does not require that the officer employ the least intrusive means conceivable” in effectuating a traffic stop. Palmer, 820 F.3d at 649 (emphasis added). In our view, an officer reasonably may search a computer database during a traffic stop to determine an individual’s prior contact with local law enforcement, just as an officer may engage in the indisputably proper action of searching computer databases for an individual’s outstanding warrants. See id. at 651 (explaining that, in the interest of officer safety, officers are “entitled to inquire into a motorist’s criminal record after initiating a traffic stop”); Rodriguez, 135 S. Ct. at 1615-16; see also Smith v. Commonwealth, 55 Va. App. 30, 683 S.E.2d 316, 318 (Va. Ct. App. 2009) (explaining that PISTOL includes information helpful for officers to assess their safety in the field), overruled on other grounds by Commonwealth v. Smith, 281 Va. 582, 709 S.E.2d 139 (Va. 2011). An officer may take such measures with respect to both the driver and passengers of a stopped vehicle to ensure officer safety. See Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408, 413-15, 117 S. Ct. 882, 137 L. Ed. 2d 41 (1997) (holding that an officer may order a passenger out of a vehicle during a traffic stop for officer safety reasons); see also United States v. Robinson, 846 F.3d 694, 699 (4th Cir. 2017) (en banc) (“[W]hen the stop involves one or more passengers, that fact ‘increases the possible sources of harm to the officer,’ as ‘the motivation of a passenger to employ violence is every bit as great as that of the driver.'”) (quoting Wilson, 519 U.S. at 413-14) (internal alterations omitted).

We also decline Hill’s invitation that we find unreasonable as a matter of law Officer McClendon’s decision to stand next to the car during most of the stop, rather than to assist Officer Taylor in completing the database searches in the police cruiser. As noted above, the NCIC database returned an alert that the two men were “likely armed.” This situation illustrates the concerns that the Supreme Court and this Court repeatedly have emphasized, namely, that because “[t]raffic stops are especially fraught with danger to police officers,” those officers may “take certain negligibly burdensome precautions” to ensure the safe completion of the stop. Rodriguez, 135 S. Ct. at 1616 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); Palmer, 820 F.3d at 651 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Therefore, given the inherent risks involved in such traffic stops, we conclude that the decision here by the two officers to allocate duties at the scene of the traffic stop, so that one remained in the immediate proximity of the vehicle’s occupants at all times, was not unreasonable.