Cian Pridgen v. United States (decided April 7,
2016).
The Players: Associate Judges Blackburne-Rigsby
and Thompson. Senior Judge Ferren. Opinion by Judge Thompson. Mindy Daniels for
Mr. Pridgen. Trial Judge: Ronna Lee Beck.
Facts: Three police officers patrolling in an unmarked vehicle
saw Mr. Pridgen walking toward an apartment building. As he walked in front of
their car, one officer leaned out the open window, shined a flashlight at him,
and shouted out to him to ask whether he had a gun. Mr. Pridgen did not
respond, kept walking, and then began to run. He “kept the palm of his left
hand pressed against his jacket on his left side” as he was running, and the
officers got out and followed him. As the officers followed him, he dropped a
cell phone just inside the apartment building but did not stop to get it. The
officers stood outside the apartment building, with the Mr. Pridgen inside, and
looked through the glass doors to see Mr. Pridgen with his hand moving in his
left pocket, and his body pressed up against the apartment door as if he was
trying to get inside the unit. Someone let the officers in the locked door, and
they shouted at Mr. Pridgen to get on the ground. When he did not obey their
orders, they tackled him and forced him to the ground. When they searched him,
they found a gun in his jacket pocket. Mr. Pridgen moved to suppress the gun as
the fruit of an unlawful seizure.
Issue: Did the police officers have reasonable articulable
suspicion justifying a seizure when they tackled Mr. Pridgen inside the
apartment building?
Holding: Yes. The court held that Mr. Pridgen was not “seized”
until the moment he was tackled by the officers, and so did not analyze whether
officers had reasonable articulable suspicion justifying a seizure at the point
when Mr. Pridgen began running and the officers ran after him. However, the
court found that by the time the officers tackled Mr. Pridgen, there was
reasonable articulable suspicion justifying a seizure because 1) Mr. Pridgen
was running while holding his left side, which a “reasonable officer” would
recognize as “the way individuals tend to run when carrying a firearm;” 2) Mr.
Pridgen did not stop to retrieve the cell phone he dropped, negating the
possibility that he was holding his left side to protect some other valuable
item that was not a gun; and 3) Mr. Pridgen did not obey the officers’ orders
to get on the ground, even though he could see that they were wearing vests
that said “Police,” creating a “reasonable basis to believe he was armed and
dangerous.”
Accordingly, given the “totality
of the circumstances,” the court found that there was a reasonable articulable
suspicion that Mr. Pridgen was armed, justifying the seizure and search that
the led the officers to discover the gun in Mr. Pridgen’s jacket pocket.
Of Note: Although the court said it was not analyzing whether
there was reasonable articulable suspicion to seize Mr. Pridgen when he began
running and the officers chased him, the opinion strongly suggests that the
court believed there was not. The court said that the crucial moment was when Mr.
Pridgen dropped the cell phone but continued running. Recognizing that a gun is
not the only item a person might hold onto while running, the court said: “we are
persuaded that the officers’ articulable basis for suspicion that Mr. Pridgen
was armed did not ripen into a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was
afoot until the officers saw Mr. Pridgen drop the cell phone, decline to stop
and retrieve it even though the door was locked behind him, and continue to
hold his side as he ran upstairs to the door of the apartment unit.” The court
also suggested that running away from the police could not form a basis for
suspicion, saying that “we are mindful that a suspect’s flight at the sight of
officers who are targeting him with a flashlight may provide a basis for fear
of harm that has nothing to do with whether the suspect is engaged in criminal
activity.” SN
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