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UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jody Demar FONTENOT, Defendant-Appellant

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit2012-06-15No. No. 11-10368
484 F. App'x 186

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Opinion

majority opinion

MEMORANDUM

Jody Fontenot appeals the district court’s denial of his motion for suppression of evidence and his subsequent conviction, following a bench trial, for having violated 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), which prohibits felons’ possession of firearms. The parties are familiar with the facts underlying the appeal and thus we do not include them save as necessary. We affirm.

A police officer may detain an individual to conduct an investigatory frisk consistent with the Fourth Amendment if the officer has “a reasonable articulable suspicion that [the individual] pose[s] a threat to his safety or the safety of others....” United States v. Terry-Crespo, 356 F.3d 1170, 1173 (9th Cir.2004) (citing United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989)); see also Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Here, the police had a reasonable articulable suspicion that Fontenot posed a threat to the safety of others. The police had received a high priority 9-1-1 dispatch that, in the parking lot of a liquor store on the corner of Geneva Avenue and Santos Street in San Francisco, there was a group of “guys” in front of the store and one of them was pulling out a gun. On arrival four minutes after the 9-1-1 call was made, the police saw only one group in the parking lot, a group of three males, one of whom was Fontenot. This met the requirement of “ ‘some minimal level of objective justification’ for making the stop.” United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989) (quoting INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 217, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1984)). Further, as discussed by the district court in its opinion below, the 9-1-1 dispatch and the police had received an emergency call from a cell phone with the phone number identified; this “provided the police with sufficient indicia of reliability prior to the Terry stop to justify reliance on [the call.]” Terry-Crespo, 356 F.3d at 1174 (referring to Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868), because it removed a good deal of the anonymity of the call.

AFFIRMED.

This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.