Defendant\u2019s claim he didn\u2019t flee\u2013he merely walked away to a porch and sat down. That was flight enough for reasonable suspicion. United States v. Colbert, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 182322 (N.D. Ill. December 27, 2012):<\/p>\n
Defendant nevertheless argues that the officers lacked reasonable suspicion because Defendant did not “flee” from the police but simply ran onto a porch and sat down. (Def.’s Mot. Quash & Suppress 6.) But Defendant began running away from the officers when the man on the corner appeared to have alerted Defendant of their presence. Running upon noticing the police is highly evasive behavior. See Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119 at 124 (“Headlong flight \u2014 wherever it occurs \u2014 is the consummate act of evasion”). Furthermore, courts regularly find evasive behavior short of the type at issue here sufficient to warrant a Terry stop. See, e.g., Oglesby, 597 F.3d at 894 (finding defendant’s actions in slowly taking a few steps away from a group while looking from side to side and angling his body away from the police officers were pertinent factors in determining reasonable suspicion); U.S. v. Harris, 188 Fed. Appx. 498, 501-02 (7th Cir. 2006) (“We have held that walking away quickly in the face of commands by police officers to stop is evasive behavior that contributes to the reasonableness of an officer’s suspicion.”); U.S. v. Baskin, 401 F.3d 788, 793 (7th Cir. 2005) (holding that the officer had reasonable suspicion to conduct a Terry stop and concluding that “[i]t was also reasonable for [the officer] to interpret the [defendant’s] vehicle’s sudden acceleration as evidence of unprovoked flight”); U.S. v. Mays, 643 F.3d 537 (6th Cir. 2011) (“flight is not the only type of ‘nervous evasive behavior.’ Furtive movements made in response to a police presence may also properly contribute to an officer’s suspicions.”) (internal citations omitted); U.S. v. Humphries, 372 F.3d 653, 660 (4th Cir. 2004) (noting that courts can consider “evasive conduct that falls short of headlong flight” and holding that defendant’s “evasive conduct” included “immediately walk[ing] away as the officers approached, and although [defendant] did not run, he walked away at a quick pace, ignoring the officer’s commands to stop.”) Thus, Defendant’s actions, coupled with the circumstances already described, provided the officers with reasonable suspicion to stop and investigate him pursuant to Terry. See Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 124-25; U.S. v. Lenoir, 318 F.3d at 729.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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