{"id":2356,"date":"2008-08-11T07:45:26","date_gmt":"2008-08-11T07:45:26","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-08-11T07:45:26","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=2356","title":{"rendered":"OH2: Detaining a possible witness to a man screaming after a 911 call was reasonable"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police responded to a domestic violence call to a payphone and found a screaming man accompanied by defendant. As the officer approached, defendant tried to leave, but he was grabbed by the officer. Detaining a potential witness was reasonable. State v. Topps<\/a>, 2008 Ohio 4021, 2008 Ohio App. LEXIS 3400 (2d Dist. August 8, 2008):<\/p>\n

[*P30] We conclude that these standards for a constitutionally reasonable stop of a potential witness to a crime are both practical and sensible. We also find that the stop of Topps meets all three requirements. With regard to the first prong, police were recently dispatched to the area around where Topps was arrested in order to investigate a possible violent crime or accident. That fact, combined with a man screaming in public could reasonably have made police believe that a misdemeanor or felony involving danger or forcible injury was occurring or had just occurred.<\/p>\n

[*P31] Topps’s proximity to the screaming man supports the second requirement. Common sense would suggest that if one is standing within an arm’s length of a screaming man in the early morning hours, one may have some knowledge of material aid to the police, such as why he is screaming or who he is. As it happens, this may not have been the case here, but a police officer could reasonably have concluded that Topps would likely have had knowledge of circumstances that would have been useful to the investigation of the matter.<\/p>\n

[*P32] Lastly, fulfilling the third requirement, the stop of Topps was a reasonable measure for police to take in order for the police to assess the situation with the screaming man. All that deputies knew when they arrived was that there had been reports of a crime in the area and that a man was screaming. A grown man screaming in public in the wee hours of the morning would be an odd and alarming sight. Saylor testified that he felt something was “very, very” wrong. The white male may have been in hysterics. Topps could have appeared to police to be the one person who was most capable of explaining the situation to police. It was reasonable to momentarily detain Topps in order to determine whether he knew the screaming man, and whether he had any information about what crime, if any, had just occurred.<\/p>\n

[*P33] In conclusion, given the totality of the circumstances, including the ongoing police investigation near the Dixie Lounge, the screaming man, and Topps’s arm’s-length proximity to the screaming man, police acted reasonably in stopping him as a potential witness to a serious crime under the standards defined both in Brown v. Texas<\/em><\/a>, supra, and the Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure [\u00a7 110.2(1)(b) (1975)].<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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