United States v. Reginald Edwards

Reginald Aaron Edwards was arrested and charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm after an anonymous caller reported a shooting to a 911 dispatcher. Police officers responding to the 911 call found Edwards in the vicinity of the reported shooting and discovered that he matched the description of the reported suspect. They stopped Edwards, frisked him and found he had a gun, and then arrested him. Edwards conditionally pled guilty and now challenges the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress the evidence police obtained when they stopped him. Specifically, Edwards contends that the officers’ conduct converted his detention before the gun was discovered from an investigatory stop into an arrest, and that even if Edwards’ detention was merely an investigatory stop, the officers did not have reasonable suspicion to stop him. We hold that the officers properly conducted an investigatory stop and had reasonable suspicion to do so.

I. Background

On May 3, 2012, at 7:40 p.m., the Inglewood Police Department received a 911 call from an unidentified male reporting that a “young black male” at the corner of West Boulevard and Hyde Park Boulevard was shooting…