DE: Roadblock to catch fleeing bank robbers was reasonable

Realtime GPS tracking information from a bank money pack taken in a bank robbery led police to a block in Wilmington, Delaware. It was reasonable for the police to cordon off the entire block and seize every car in it looking for the robbers. Montgomery v. State, 2020 Del. LEXIS 128 (Apr. 3, 2020) (Treatise § 23.14 n.2):

(19) In connection with his argument that his detention was illegal, Montgomery contends that the police could not legally detain all of the vehicles traveling on the 1000 block of West Fourth Street. But balancing the individual’s liberty interest against the public interests, the courts have found that there are certain circumstances where a group seizure may be appropriately tailored to comport with the protections of the Fourth Amendment—for example, immigration checkpoints and DUI checkpoints. And the United States Supreme Court has noted that “the Fourth Amendment would almost certainly permit an appropriately tailored roadblock set up to … catch a dangerous criminal who is likely to flee by way of a particular route.”

(20) Here, the police had real time tracking information indicating that the money stolen from the WSFS bank by a man wielding a handgun was likely traveling in a vehicle that was stopped somewhere on the 1000 block of West Fourth Street. Under the circumstances, we are comfortable concluding that the cordoning off of the 1000 West Fourth Street to briefly detain the vehicles traveling there was appropriately tailored to the circumstances: the gravity of the public concern over an armed robber on the lam, the degree to which the seizure advanced the public interest in apprehending the bank robber, and the relatively minor interference with the stopped individuals’ liberty interests. Moreover, after the vehicle stop, Corporal Whitehead developed individualized articulable suspicion that Montgomery was committing or had committed a crime. In fact, that suspicion rapidly rose to the level of probable cause. After all, Montgomery (i) was in a car in the area where the police knew that the GPS trackers were stopped, (ii) met the general description of the suspect, and (iii) had plastic gloves similar to those used to conceal fingerprints in his immediate vicinity. Corporal Whitehead also knew that the bank robber had worn some sort of neon-colored jacket, and he could see a brightly-colored item of clothing located next to Montgomery. Montgomery’s initial detention did not violate the Fourth Amendment.