MA: Stop, handcuffing, and removal for a showup not an arrest

Defendant’s investigative stop in response to a radio call of a shooting was justified. His actions justified handcuffing, and he was constitutionally removed for a show up without it being an arrest. Commonwealth v. Phillips, 453 Mass. 203, 897 N.E.2d 31 (2008):

Phillips’s claims that the description of him given by Echols (a black male wearing a green jacket) was insufficient to justify his stop. He ignores the entire circumstances surrounding his stop, namely, the temporal proximity of the stop to the reported crime, his geographical proximity to the scene of the reported crime, his presence in a location that matched the reported direction in which the suspects had fled, and his bizarre conduct of crouching behind a tree in front of a house. Based on all these facts, as well as Phillips’s match to a general description of one of the suspects, the police possessed the requisite reasonable suspicion to justify Phillips’s stop. See Commonwealth v. Mercado, 422 Mass. 367, 371 (1996).

We reject Phillips’s contention that, by handcuffing him and placing him in a police wagon (until Echols made the identification), the detention constituted an arrest. A “justifiable threshold inquiry permits a limited restraint of the individuals involved as long as their detention is commensurate with the purpose of the stop.” Commonwealth v. Feyenord, 445 Mass. 72, 77 (2005), cert. denied, 546 U.S. 1187 (2006), quoting Commonwealth v. Torres, 424 Mass. 153, 162 (1997). “The degree of suspicion the police reasonably harbor must be proportional to the level of intrusiveness of the police conduct.” Commonwealth v. Feyenord, supra, quoting Commonwealth v. Sinforoso, 434 Mass. 320, 323 (2001). As conceded by Phillips, he acted “evasively” when stopped. The police reasonably could have viewed Phillips’s movement to the front porch of the house, and noncompliance with police commands, as an attempt to flee, and physically restrained him. The fact that they also handcuffed Phillips is not dispositive. See Commonwealth v. Williams, supra at 118, and cases cited. Because of the violent nature of the reported crimes, his attempt to flee, and the possible danger to the safety of the officers as well as the potential occupants of the house, the scope of Phillips’s detention was permissible. Id. at 118-119. He was handcuffed and placed in the patrol wagon for only ten minutes until Echols made his positive identification. The brief detention was made with the permissible purpose of completing the identification. We add that Phillips’s short detention in this manner, and for this purpose, was further justified when, minutes after he was handcuffed, the officers who had detained him learned that other officers had found two handguns nearby. The police did not exceed the scope of a lawful investigatory stop when they handcuffed and detained Phillips. See id. at 117-119.