OH7: After neighborhood shootout, bullet holes in door across street and no answer justified community caretaking entry

Police responded to a shootout on the street, and an officer went to defendant’s house and saw fresh bullet holes in the door. He knocked and got no answer. The next door neighbor said that the occupants had to be home because their car was there. The entry was justified under the community caretaking function. State v. Stanley, 2014-Ohio-5636, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 5451 (7th Dist. December 19, 2014).

Defendant was already stopped and talking to somebody. Officers came up to him and struck up a conversation. They knew about drug deals on wiretaps, and the officers baited him by falsely mentioning that his car was involved in a robbery just to see how he’d react, and he became instantly belligerent. That wasn’t reasonable suspicion in itself, but it’s a factor on the totality. He also lied about where he’d just come from. All that added up to reasonable suspicion on the totality. United States v. Faagai-Del Mundo, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 176709 (D.Haw. December 23, 2014).*