This page uses extracted PDF text. Text can misread numbers, dates or table columns. Check the PDF before quoting or interpreting it. Redacted areas remain redacted.
- 10 -
sure we’re on the same page here. No weapons in the vehicle?
Do you have any drugs in the [inaudible] of the car?”
• Knight-Walker again replied “No, I do not,” but Allen
continued his investigation, asking specifically “No marijuana,
no cocaine, no heroin, nothing crazy?”
• Knight-Walker, with her cell phone still in her hand still
waiting to make a call, replied “No. No marijuana, no cocaine,
no illegal substances;”
• Allen then responded “Okay. Do you mind if I check?” causing
Knight-Walker to pause, grab the back of her neck and say
“Umm,” before Allen interjected “it would be real quick. I just
want to make sure nothing’s in the car.”
• Knight-Walker, without saying anything else, got out of the car
holding her bag and her cell phone.
In short, Allen’s actions were impermissible under the particular facts of this case
because he had already informed Knight-Walker that she was not going to be arrested and that
she would need to have someone pick her up. Nevertheless, before she could commence her
call, he repeated his request to search the vehicle and subsequently did so.7 These repeated
inquiries regarding contraband in the vehicle and the request to search the vehicle, coupled with
the subsequent pat-down frisk and the search of the vehicle—all of which prevented Knight-
Walker from calling her son and which were done without reasonable articulable suspicion—
impermissibly prolonged the initial traffic investigation beyond what is articulated by the United
States Supreme Court in Rodriguez. Knight-Walker consistently responded “No” to Allen’s
increasingly specific questions about whether there were guns or drugs in the vehicle, and Allen
did not indicate any concerns for officer safety given that he allowed both Knight-Walker and
her passenger to rummage through the car in search of her license and the vehicle’s registration.
7 The search of the vehicle occurred only after Allen asked to and conducted a pat down
of Knight-Walker once she got out of the car. The search here was not supported by reasonable
articulable suspicion and was entirely separate from his initially lawful detention of
Knight-Walker to investigate a suspected traffic offense. Jump to an indexed page (23 of 23)