CA10: RS on totality, and most significant factor was occupants’ stories obviously being made up “on the spot”

There was reasonable suspicion on the totality from two factors that didn’t mean a lot on their own (nervousness and unusual travel plans) and one that did: completely inconsistent stories between the driver and passenger obviously being made up “on the spot.” United States v. Chow, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 25733 (10th Cir. Dec. 20, 2017).

The officer [just barely] had reasonable suspicion to continue to detain defendant although he was first going to let him go on his way because there wasn’t much to detain on. When defendant put his DL away, in the wallet the officer saw a purported DEA badge [but it was fake and bought off of eBay] that defendant never flashed nor did he represent himself to be with the DEA. The plastic cards were suspected credit cards, but the officer couldn’t see that they weren’t in defendant’s name. Then defendant was found to be a frequent crosser of the US-Mexico border, had prior drug arrests, there were dryer sheets in the car (usually used as masking agents), and an empty hidden compartment. United States v. Anguiano, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 209553 (D. Minn. Oct. 23, 2017).*

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