An anonymous telephone tip about a person with a concealed handgun lacks sufficient indicia of reliability to create a reasonable suspicion justifying a stop. Applying the totality of the circumstances test and relying on Florida v. J.L. (2000) 529 U.S. 266, the Court of Appeal found that an anonymous telephone tip about an individual in a park who had a handgun and who was threatening to shoot people did not create a reasonable suspicion to justify a Terry stop and frisk. Moreover, under People v. Sanders (2003) 31 Cal.4th 318, because the officer was unaware of appellant’s parole status, the parole search condition would not redeem this search and seizure of the firearm. The Court of Appeal explicitly noted that the Attorney General did not attempt to limit the Sanders holding to residential searches, and that it had explicitly rejected such an argument as applied to probationers in a vehicle stop in People v. Hester (2004) 119 Cal.App.4th 376, and that the First District had applied Sanders to a search of a probationeer on a public street in People v. Bowers (2004) 117 Cal.App.4th 1261, 1270.
Case Summaries