N.D.Ill.: Pointing a gun isn’t a seizure, but def’s raising hands made it one

Defendant wasn’t seized just by the officer pointing a gun at him; it was when he raised his hands and submitted. “Here, because the officers were responding to a call about an individual with a firearm and Officer Davis reasonably thought that Morgan had reached toward his waistband, the Court finds that the officers’ use of their firearms and handcuffs to effectuate Morgan’s seizure did not convert the Terry stop into a full-fledged arrest. Thus, the officers need only have had reasonable suspicion—i.e., ‘a particularized and objective basis for suspecting’—that Morgan was engaging in criminal activity for the stop to be valid. See Cortez, 449 U.S. at 417-18.” Officers didn’t have reasonable suspicion until defendant reached for his waistband. United States v. Morgan, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 101549 (N.D. Ill. May 28, 2021).