E.D.Pa.: Anonymous tip on the street was RS when corroborated

Anonymous tip from a person on the street, in an area well known for gun violence, reporting to police officers that there was a man with a gun was sufficient to give reasonable suspicion when critical facts panned out. United States v. Stallings, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15851 (E.D. Pa. February 22, 2010):

Although no two search and seizure cases present precisely the same facts, Valentine nonetheless controls here with respect to the reliability of the tip given to Officers Rosado and Marcellino. In a neighborhood known for gun violence, a woman stopped the Officers to report that a man in a distinctive car a block away had a gun. The Officers were able to assess the woman’s credibility as she spoke to them, and their immediate response indicates that they found her credible. See Valentine, 232 F.3d at 355 (“From the fact that the officers acted, and acted quickly, after receiving the tip, a court may deduce that the officers thought the tipster’s demeanor, voice, and perhaps a host of other factors supported the reliability of the tip.”); see also United States v. Nelson, 284 F.3d 472, 480 (3d Cir. 2002) (anonymous in person tip has “greater reliability … because the officers had an opportunity to appraise the witness’s credibility through observation”). Although in their hurry to investigate, the Officers failed to obtain the woman’s name, I am “not going to second-guess the officers’ decision to pursue the suspect immediately.” Valentine, 232 F.3d at 355. Moreover, although “[w]hat matters for our purposes is not that the officers could guarantee that they could track down the informant again,” the Officers had the “opportunity to find the informant if the tip did not pan out. ” Id.

In any event, the “tip” did “pan out.” Once they drove around the corner, the Officers were able immediately to corroborate aspects of what the woman had told them: the car, its location, and its driver matched her descriptions. … In these circumstances, I conclude that under Valentine the woman’s tip was reliable.

Of course, “the reliability of a tip … is not all that we must consider in evaluating reasonable suspicion; the content of the tip must also be taken into account, as well as other surrounding circumstances.” Id. Here, the context and surrounding circumstances further support a finding of reasonable suspicion. The woman reported that a man had a gun at night in an area prone to gun violence and police shootings.