MO: Radio report of def being potentially armed and dangerous plus unusually cluttered car justified protective weapons search

Defendant was stopped for expired tags. The officer noticed the inside of the vehicle was unusually cluttered. He got the DL and went back to his patrol car to call it in. “After the report came back that Lindsay was classified as a ‘Caution 1’ which Officer Zaerr understood to mean that Lindsay was known to be armed and dangerous, Officer Zaerr ‘started recalling all the clutter he had inside of his truck and actually on the bed of the truck’ and the ‘safety hazard for [him] not being able to see what’s inside the vehicle, if there’s any weapons …’ Officer Zaerr testified that while he did not see any contraband, weapons, or evidence of any illegal activity inside the vehicle, he did not feel safe in not being able to see what was actually there.” There were sufficient grounds for a protective weapons search under Michigan v. Long. State v. Lindsay, 2020 Mo. App. LEXIS 548 (Apr. 28, 2020).

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