People v. Wickers

California Court of Appeal Mar 14, 1972 No. Crim. 20901Published

Before: Roth

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Holding. The court held that the police detention of the respondent was lawful because the circumstances, including recent area robberies and the suspicious flight of the respondent's passenger, justified the investigative stop and the subsequent search for weapons.

Issues

Whether the initial detention of the respondent by police was lawful under the Fourth Amendment.
Whether the detention was unlawfully prolonged by the police.

Disposition. reversed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The resulting detention was lawful since Wickers’ activity in parking at the station was under the circumstances sufficiently unusual, and its connection to a possibly impending robbery sufficiently apparent, to warrant police investigation.”

“Wickers’ contention that the detention was unlawfully prolonged is not warranted by the facts.”

Opinion

ROTH, P. J.

People appeal from an order dismissing an information charging the unlawful possession of marijuana in one count. (Health & Saf. Code, § 11530.)

Respondent has adopted the People’s statement of facts. We set forth that statement substantially verbatim, except as modified by the court.

Douglas W. Poland, a police officer in the City of Pomona, was on May 28, 1971, assigned to the patrol division. At about 12:57 a.m. Poland who was in a police vehicle with his partner Hernandez, observed a vehicle parked on the Gulf station lot located in the vicinity of the southwest corner of Gary Avenue and Artesia Street in the City of Pomona. There had been numerous armed robberies in the surrounding area in which male Negro suspects were involved,

in the week preceding.

Poland had, during a briefing from Sergeant Pfaff, learned that one or two days earlier the Claremont Police Department had a robbery involving a male Negro described as being in his early twenties, 5 feet, 7 inches tall, weighing 150 pounds, having black hair, a mustache and mutton-chop sideburns. The weapon used in the course of this robbery the officer believed to be a machete. Also within the preceding seven days, there had been a robbery in the area of Upland or Cucamonga involving a male Negro who had used a stocking to cover his face.

The Gulf station was open for business and its lot was surrounded by suspended lights and visibility conditions were almost as good as those during daylight hours. The officer observed respondent seated behind the steering wheel of the parked vehicle, a 1968 Riviera, black or grey. There was one other person in the car. After observing respondent Poland contacted the attendant of the service station to discover how long the occupants of the vehicle had been at the location and whether they had asked the attendant for service. The attendant indicated that the vehicle had

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been there for some time, that he did not know the reason for the presence of the vehicle or its occupants, and that the occupants had not contacted him.

People v. Wickers

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ROTH, P. J.

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