NE: Three day old information vehicle was involved in a shooting was RS

There was reasonable suspicion for the stop of defendant’s vehicle on a three day old report of it being involved in a shooting. On appeal from a denial of a motion to suppress, the evidence from both the suppression hearing and trial is considered. State v. Thomas, 308 Neb. 312 (Feb. 5, 2021):

In this case, the officers looked for a vehicle matching a description in the police bulletin of the vehicle involved in the crime and observed one such vehicle near the scene of the crime. After Thomas drove off in the vehicle, officers followed it until it could be stopped safely. The crime under investigation was a shots-fired incident 3 days earlier, and the weapon used during the incident had not been recovered. To approach the vehicle safely to conduct their investigation of the crime, the officers blocked Thomas’ vehicle in, stayed in a position of safety near their vehicles with weapons drawn, and commanded Thomas to put his hands out the window of his vehicle, open the door from the outside, and exit the vehicle. We find that the purpose served by the detention was a temporary seizure for investigatory purposes and that law enforcement pursued its investigation diligently. Further, the scope and intrusiveness of the investigatory detention was justified by the officers’ reasonable belief that the driver might be armed, and it did not exceed the scope circumscribed by that exigency. The seizure was a tier-two encounter.

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