When Vehicle Stop Based on Police Radio Alert, Must State Show Dispatcher Had Reasonable Basis for Alert?
Where Intent of Stop Was to Prevent Suicide, Rather Than Apprehend Criminal
2nd District Court of Appeals (Montgomery County)
ISSUE: When a police officer conducts an emergency stop of a vehicle in response to a radio alert that is not based on any observed or reported criminal activity by the driver, but the driver is later charged with a crime based on evidence police obtained through the traffic stop, if the driver moves to suppress that evidence, must the state make a showing at a suppression hearing that the dispatcher who issued the radio alert had a reasonable basis to believe there was an emergency situation that justified stopping the vehicle?