Fourth Circuit: Social Media Post Provides Reasonable Suspicion Despite No Other Suspicious Behavior
This case law update was written by Michael J. Sgarlat, an attorney at the law firm of Shaw Bransford & Roth, where he has practiced federal personnel and employment law since 2015. Mr. Sgarlat works with federal employees to respond to proposed disciplinary and adverse actions, and has experience litigating cases before the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board.
The Winston-Salem Police Department has a “gang-unit,” where officers monitor social media activity of confirmed gang members. The gang-unit identified Chandler Antwan Gist-Davis as a member of the United Blood Nation gang, and officers monitored his social media activity.
On October 3, 2018, Officers James Singletary and Travis Montgomery were on patrol at a fair. There were postings prohibiting firearms at the fair. While there, Officer Singletary was simultaneously monitoring social media, and saw a post on Facebook from Gist-Davis. The post stated: “Oops see me at da fair yea I got it on me lil boy Fannie pack gang.” The officers understood the word “Oops” to be a typo for “ops” or “opposition.”
Officer Singletary alerted other officers of the post by text message and that Gist-Davis was believed to be carrying a concealed weapon. Twenty minutes later, Gist-Davis was spotted at the fair in his fanny pack. Officer Montgomery approached Gist-Davis, held his arms, and another officer, Officer Ashley Jamerson, placed Gist-Davis in handcuffs. During a patdown, Officer Jamerson felt a gun in the fanny pack (still around Gist-Davis’s waist), unzipped the fanny pack, and pulled out a handgun.
The officers arrested Gist-Davis, and he was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. He filed a motion to suppress. The motion was denied. The district court found the officers reasonably interpreted Gist-Davis’s post to mean that he was at the fair with a firearm, and that the Terry stop and frisk, and seizure were constitutional. Gist-Davis appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Gist-Davis argued the officers lacked reasonable suspicion for the Terry stop and frisk because he did not engage in any behavior of apparent criminal activity at the fair. Here, the court of appeals agreed with the district court that the officers were justified in detaining Gist-Davis and frisking his fanny pack for weapons.
The court explained that when accompanied with the officers’ prior knowledge of Gist-Davis as a felon and his involvement in gang activity, they reasonably concluded that Gist-Davis was a felon possessing a firearm. The court of appeals also found that the scope of the stop and frisk was reasonable because the social media post provided the officers reason to believe that Gist-Davis was armed.
The court of appeals distinguished the patdown of a fanny pack from the patdown of a cross-body bag, which the court had found to be unconstitutional in United States v. Buster this year. The main differentiating facts were that in Buster, the suspect was not in a realistic position to cause danger to officer safety since he was lying on the ground handcuffed and the bag was off his person. Though Gist-Davis was in handcuffs here, he had not been completely subdued and was at a crowded fair. The court of appeals found this to be enough of a “realistic danger” to the officers’ and public safety.
The court of appeals affirmed the judgment of the district court.
Read the full case: United States v. Gist-Davis
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