E.D.Pa.: 1 am robbery report by three men was enough to stop first three men seen in vicinity

The stopping officer had a radio report of a recent robbery at 12:54 a.m. by three black males, with no further description. In the vicinity of the robbery, a high crime area, the officer encountered three men about 1 a.m. That was enough for a stop on the totality since there was nobody else out. United States v. Starkey, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 158149 (E.D. Pa. November 4, 2014)*:

As an initial matter, though Starkey does not challenge the reliability of the information provided to the officers via the police radio dispatch, the Court acknowledges that the dispatch lacked some detail about the perpetrators of the robbery. In particular, the dispatch did not provide any description of the clothing worn by any of the three perpetrators. Instead, it offered only that there were three perpetrators, the gender and skin color of those three perpetrators, the fact that they took a bag and a phone from the victim, and the direction in which they were moving. The Third Circuit has held that other circumstances “can provide sufficient particularity or specificity to an otherwise general or indefinite description.” Goodrich, 450 F.3d at 560. Further, even where there is some discrepancy between the individuals stopped by the police and a general or vague description provided to the police, this discrepancy alone will not necessarily render the stop unconstitutional. See Goodrich, 450 F.3d at 560-61 (finding the initial stop of a woman and a man reasonable where an informant’s tip described two women, in light of other factors that raised officers’ suspicion). Like in Goodrich, there was a discrepancy in this case between the information provided via the police radio dispatch and the characteristics of the group stopped. But the group Officer Nolan encountered did align with the information provided in several respects: (1) the number of individuals in the group; (2) the fact that there was one male in the group, who had something over his shoulder that could reasonably have been interpreted as a bag; and (3) presence just south of 22nd and Providence. Accordingly, I will consider this information alongside other factors relevant to the totality of the circumstances analysis.

The stop here took place in a particular area known to officers as a high crime area. “While an individual’s presence in a high-crime area is not by itself sufficient to warrant a Terry stop, the fact that the stop occurred in a ‘high crime area’ [is] among the relevant contextual considerations in a Terry analysis.” Valentine, 232 F.3d at 356. Officer Dougherty testified that every night there were shootings and that he assisted with hundreds of arrests in this vicinity, including arrests for robberies. While this knowledge cannot necessarily be imputed to Officer Nolan, it corroborates the testimony of Officer Nolan, who explained that in this neighborhood, he had already responded to calls of shootings, robberies, and domestic disputes of some nature, despite his very short time on patrol. I thus find that the reputation of this “funnel” area for robberies and gun violence is relevant to the reasonable suspicion calculus.

The late hour at which this stop occurred also justified heightened suspicion on the part of Officer Nolan. “The lateness of the hour of the stop [can] further support[] the inference of criminal activity, especially when considered alongside the area’s reputation for criminal activity.” Goodrich, 450 F.3d at 561. The crime and investigatory stop took place just before 1:00 a.m., an hour late enough to raise an officer’s level of suspicion when encountering a group of individuals walking down the street, particularly in a high crime area. Compare Goodrich, 450 F.3d at 561 (finding that 11:30 p.m. was a late hour that could lead to an inference of criminal activity); and Valentine, 232 F.3d at 356-57 (finding the fact that the defendant was walking around at 1:00 a.m. relevant to the analysis of reasonable suspicion), and Brown, 159 F.3d at 148, 150 (finding reasonable suspicion where incident took place around 1:30 a.m.), with United States v. Navedo, 694 F.3d 463, 465, 472 (3d Cir. 2012) (finding no reasonable suspicion where encounter occurred at 8:30 p.m.).