United States v. Lenin M. Jerez and Carlos M. Solis

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge.

Lenin Jerez and Carlos Solis pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Prior to entering the pleas, Mr. Jerez and Mr. Solis filed motions to suppress the cocaine which formed the basis of the charges on the ground that its seizure violated the Fourth Amendment. The district court denied the motions. Pursuant to their conditional plea agreements, Mr. Jerez and Mr. Solis now appeal the district court’s denial of their motions to suppress. For the reasons set forth in the following opinion, we reverse the judgment of the district court.

I

BACKGROUND

A. Facts

On September 26, 1994, Deputy Sheriffs Donald Hurrle and Daniel Lent were patrolling the area around Mitchell Field International Airport in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. Both officers were assigned to the drug interdiction unit, the purpose, of which was to prevent the entry of illegal drugs into Milwaukee County. The officers were looking for “target vehicles” from “source states.” “Target vehicles” are vans or two-door vehicles. Deputy Hurrle testified that such vehicles are favored by drug couriers. “Source states” include California, Texas, Florida and Arizona. These states are considered to be a locus of drug trafficking.

At around 7:25 p.m., Deputies Hurrle and Lent noticed a two-door, white 1988 Honda Prelude with Florida license plates in the parking lot of a Quality Inn near the airport. Because the two-door ear from Florida was parked near the airport and the interstate, the officers believed that the car might be involved in drug trafficking. Seeking more information about the car, Deputy Hurrle used his radio to request the Sheriffs Department to run the license plate number through its computer. The check revealed that the car was not stolen and was registered to Carlos M. Solis of Miami, Florida. The officers then entered the motel to ask the staff at the front desk some questions about Mr. Solis. They learned that Mr. Solis was a registered guest at the motel and was staying in Room 161 with another individual.

Deputies Hurrle and Lent proceeded from the motel to the Sheriffs Office at the airport to obtain more information about Mr. Solis, including whether Mr. Solis had a criminal history and whether he was wanted in any other jurisdiction. Their computer investigation revealed that Mr. Solis’ Florida driver’s license was suspended and that he had been arrested in August 1994 for smuggling contraband into the Dade County Jail.¹ The investigation did not reveal why the driver’s license was suspended or what type of contraband Mr. Solis had been accused of smuggling into the jail. Mr. Solis had no extraditable felony warrants.

At around 8:30 p.m., after responding to another call, the officers returned to the Quality Inn. Deputy Hurrle, at the suppression hearing, stated that the reason for returning was that the deputies “hope[d they] could get a consent search” by knocking on the door of Mr. Solis’ motel room. Tr. at 34. Because Mr. Solis’ car was no longer in the parking lot when they arrived, the officers instead decided to set up surveillance of the area. Deputies Hurrle and Lent proceeded to maintain a look-out of the parking lot for more than two hours, during which time they saw no sign of the Honda. At 10:45 p.m., close to the officers’ 11:00 p.m. “quitting time,” the deputies returned to the airport office to complete their activity reports for the day and to fax the reports to the central office of the Sheriffs Department.

On the way home just after 11 p.m., Deputy Lent drove past the Quality Inn and noticed that Mr. Solis’ white Honda was again in the parking lot. He contacted Deputy Hurrle to relay the sighting and to request that Deputy Hurrle meet him in the parking lot. About five minutes later, Deputy Hurrle arrived and, along with Deputy Lent, proceeded into the hallway of the motel towards Room 161.

At around 11:05 or 11:10 p.m., when the two officers arrived at Room 161, the room was “quiet”; no sounds were heard coming from the room. Tr. at 38. Nevertheless, the deputies “immediately knocked on the door for several minutes, getting no response.” Tr. at 79. The deputies took turns knocking. Deputy Lent testified that, after Deputy Hurrle “initiated the knocking” and “got no response,” he (Deputy Lent) “then knocked on the door for a period of approximately three minutes.” Id. When Deputy Lent was asked at the suppression hearing whether the officers had knocked “[t]he whole three minutes,” he responded, “Intermittently, between myself and Detective Hurrle, yes.” Id.² At some point during the knocking, one of the deputies spoke in the direction of the door, “Police. Open up the door. We’d like to talk to you.” Tr. at 93.

Dissatisfied with the lack of response and convinced that the room’s occupants, though hearing the knocks, were “voluntarily” ignoring them, id., Deputy Hurrle decided to go outside and knock on the window of Room 161. At the suppression hearing, Deputy Lent explained this decision and the persistence of the officers: “[0]ur reasons for sticking around were — and for proceeding to knock on the window were — [it] was beginning to be a late hour. [The p]eople [in the motel room were] from a strange city. [They m]ay in fact feel threatened if someone comes and knocks at the door, [at a] late hour. That’s [also] why we proceeded to-present ourselves as officers.” Id. Deputy Hurrle wanted to “see if he could get a responsef, v]ia the window versus the door.” Tr. at 94.

Deputy Hurrle exited the motel and walked around to the window of Room 161 while Deputy Lent “continued to stand by at the door and continued to knock.” Tr. at 80. Deputy Hurrle then “began knocking on [the room’s window] while [Deputy] Lent continued knocking on the door.” Magistrate Judge’s Recommendation at 3. The knocking on the window was loud enough for Deputy Lent to hear it from where he was knocking. Despite the commotion, there was no immediate response from the room. Finally, after Deputy Hurrle had “knock[ed] on the window for approximately one-and-a-half to two minutes,” Deputy Lent heard movement inside Room 161. Tr. at 94.

Deputy Hurrle testified that, after he knocked on the window “a couple of times,” he saw, through a small opening in the window’s drapes, Mr. Jerez’ face as he lay in the bed. Tr. at 44, 46. The deputy directed light from his flashlight into the room in order to make this observation. With the aid of the flashlight, Deputy Hurrle saw Mr. Jerez move under the covers. Soon thereafter, Mr. Solis opened the drapes to see Deputy Hurrle standing in front of the window. The deputy was wearing a windbreaker-type jacket with a law enforcement emblem and lettering, “Drug Enforcement Unit, Milwaukee County Sheriffs Department.” Tr. at 47. Deputy Lent testified that, from where he was standing, he heard Deputy Hurrle address Mr. Solis, “Sheriffs Department. Can we talk to you? Would you open up the door?” or with words to that effect. Tr. at 95. Deputy Hurrle testified that Mr. Solis shook his head “yes” in response.

When Deputy Hurrle returned to the inner hallway, Mr. Solis, clothed only in his underwear, was opening the door. The room behind him was dark. The officers identified themselves, displayed their badges, and asked if they could speak with him. ■ Mr. Solis “said sure, or words to that [e]ffect.” Tr. at 82. As Mr. Solis proceeded to open the door further, the officers asked if they could come in and talk. Mr. Solis told the officers that they could and opened the door.

Upon entering the room, the deputies noticed a half-smoked marijuana cigarette lying on top of the television. Asked what it was, Mr. Solis replied, “That’s all we’ve got.” . Tr. at 21. Deputy Hurrle then asked Mr. Jerez, who was still in bed, if he would get up and speak with them. Once Mr. Jerez was out of the bed, the deputies proceeded to interrogate the appellants. In response to the questions, Mr. Solis said that they were from Miami and were in Milwaukee on vacation. He also said that they had come to Milwaukee to visit relatives. When pressed by the officers, neither appellant was able to supply the names or addresses of the relatives whom they might be visiting.

Following this exchange, Deputy Hurrle asked if there was anything illegal in the room. The appellants said “no.” Apparently carrying out the plan to “get a consent search,” the officers then asked if they could look through the appellants’ room and belongings. Mr. Solis and Mr: Jerez both gestured that a search would be acceptable, stating that they had nothing that they should not have. Deputy Lent then asked the two to step away from the beds and to move towards the bathroom area. Deputy Hurrle picked up a nylon suitcase from the floor and placed it on the bed. Deputy Lent asked the appellants “whose suitcase Detective Hurrle had at that moment.” Tr. at 88. In response, “Mr. Jerez more or less raised his hand and indicated that it was his suitcase.” Id, “Detective Hurrle then proceeded to move the bag into a position to begin a search.” Id. Deputy Lent “then turned to Mr. Jerez and asked him at that time, ‘[D]o you mind if my partner looks through your bag’?” Id. When Mr. Jerez nodded his head “sure,” Deputy Hurrle unzipped the bag to find a package bound with green plastic tape. The package contained a substance that looked and smelled like cocaine.

Upon discovering the package, Deputies Hurrle and Lent drew their weapons and ordered the appellants to the floor, where they were handcuffed. A subsequent search through the remaining bags yielded an additional kilogram-sized package in Mr. Jerez’ bag and a third package in a separate gym bag belonging to Mr. Solis. The officers then informed the appellants that they were under arrest for possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver. After being read their Miranda rights, both appellants stated that the cocaine belonged to them and that they had brought it up from Miami. Mr. Jerez and Mr. Solis stated that their plan was to deliver the cocaine to unnamed individuals in Milwaukee and to return to Miami to receive $2,000 each.

B. Proceedings in the District Court

Mr. Jerez and Mr. Solis were indicted for possession with intent to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). The appellants filed motions to suppress the evidence obtained during the search of the motel room on the ground that the search violated the Fourth Amendment because the officers neither had a warrant nor consent to search the room. The motions were assigned to a magistrate judge, who held an evidentiary hearing. After the hearing, the magistrate judge recommended the motions be denied.

The magistrate judge reasoned that the knocking on the appellants’ door and window did not amount to a Terry stop for which reasonable suspicion was required. The event instead was found to be a voluntary encounter, similar to those situations in which law enforcement officers approach a citizen in an airport, in a bus terminal or on the street. Even assuming arguendo that knocking on the door required some justification, the magistrate judge found that Deputies Hurrle and Lent had “adequate justification,” albeit not necessarily “reasonable suspicion,” to knock on the door and window: The white Honda was a two-door car from Florida (a “target” vehicle); the deputies knew that Mr. Solis had been arrested for smuggling some sort of contraband into a jail; they knew Mr. Solis was registered at the motel; and they had reason to believe that he was in the room. Finally, the magistrate judge found that the appellants voluntarily consented to the officers’ entering their motel room and searching their bags.

The district court accepted the magistrate judge’s recommendation and denied the motions. In its order, the court specifically agreed with the magistrate judge that the initial encounter between the deputies and the appellants did not constitute a seizure and that the subsequent search followed the appellants’ voluntary consent.

Once their suppression motions were denied, Mr. Jerez and Mr. Solis pleaded guilty, pursuant to plea agreements in which they reserved the right to appeal. Mr. Jerez and Mr. Solis now appeal the denial of their motions to suppress.

II

DISCUSSION

A. Seizure

The Fourth Amendment protects “against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const, amend. IV. Of course, not all police encounters with the citizenry. are Fourth Amendment seizures. In Terry v. Ohio, the Supreme Court noted, “Obviously, not all personal intercourse between policemen and citizens involves ‘seizures’ of persons. Only when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen may we conclude that a ‘seizure’ has occurred.” 392 U.S. 1, 19 n. 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879 n. 16, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). The appellants claim that the officers’ knocking on their motel room’s door and window and shining a flashlight through the room’s window amounted to such a restraint on their liberty.

The Supreme Court has formulated two approaches for determining whether a person has been “seized” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The first of these approaches is employed when the police approach an individual in a place such as an airport, train terminal or on the street. As a general matter, law enforcement officers may approach a willing individual in a public place and ask that person questions without violating the Fourth Amendment. Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 497, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1324, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983) (plurality opinion); United States v. Notorianni, 729 F.2d 520, 522 (7th Cir.1984). In these situations, a “seizure” of the person occurs only if a reasonable person in similar circumstances would not have felt “free to leave.” Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U.S. 567, 573, 108 S.Ct. 1975, 1979, 100 L.Ed.2d 565 (1988) (quoting United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1877, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980) (opinion of Stewart, J.)); United States v. Boden, 854 F.2d 983, 991 (7th Cir.1988).

The second approach articulated by the Supreme Court applies when the police approach an individual in a confined space such as a bus. In such a situation, it no longer “makes sense to inquire whether a reasonable person would feel free to continue walking.” Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 435, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 2387, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991). Because a person on a bus or in an otherwise confining space “has no desire to leave” and would wish to remain even if police were not present, “the degree to which a reasonable person would feel that he or she could leave is not an accurate measure of the coercive effect of the encounter.” Id. at 435-36, 111 S.Ct. at 2387. When a person’s “freedom of movement [is] restricted by a factor independent of police conduct — i.e., by his being a passenger on a bus ..., the appropriate inquiry is whether a reasonable person would feel free to decline the officers’ request or otherwise terminate the encounter.” Id. at 436, 111 S.Ct. at 2387; Chesternut, 486 U.S. at 576, 108 S.Ct. at 1981 (seizure occurred if “respondent could reasonably have believed that he was not free to disregard the police presence and go about his business”).³

This second formulation is the appropriate analytical approach in this case. Mr. Jerez’ and Mr. Solis’ movements were confined as a natural result of their voluntary decision to stay in the motel. It was the middle of the night and at least one of them was clad only in his underwear. As a practical matter, they could not have expressed their desire to terminate the encounter with the police by leaving the scene. Like the person seated on the bus in Bostick, a person staying in a motel room has no desire to leave and would remain whether police were present or not. Mr. Jerez and Mr. Solis, therefore, were “seized” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment if a reasonable person would not have felt free to decline Deputies Hurrle’s and Lent’s requests to open the door or to otherwise ignore the deputies’ presence. The test, as with the “free to leave” formulation, is an objective one and requires a contextual approach. United States v. Rodriguez, 69 F.3d 136,141 (7th Cir.1995); Notorianni, 729 F.2d at 522. The determination of whether an encounter is a seizure is made on the basis of the “totality of the circumstances” surrounding the encounter. Bostick, 501 U.S. at 437, 111 S.Ct. at 2388; Chesternut, 486 U.S. at 572-73, 108 S.Ct. at 1979. We hold that, under the totality of the unique circumstances of this case, a Fourth Amendment seizure occurred.

In making the assessment as to whether a seizure occurred, the' circumstances must, of course, be assessed in terms of the values protected by the Fourth Amendment. Here, the district court, required to assess the totality of the circumstances, failed to consider adequately two significant factors: the place and the time of the encounter. The police confronted the appellants in the middle of the night and sought admission to their dwelling place.⁴ Our jurisprudence interpreting the Fourth Amendment has long recognized that police encounters at a person’s dwelling in the middle of the night are especially intrusive. Indeed, the special vulnerability of the individual awakened at the privacy of his place of repose during the nighttime hours to face a nocturnal confrontation with the police was recognized in the common law that antedates our separation from England. See Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 210, 81 S.Ct. 473, 496, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) (“Night-time search was the evil in its most obnoxious form.”); 2 Matthew Hale, The History of the Pleas of the Crown 113 (1847); Thomas M. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations 430 (7th ed. 1903); cf. Wilson v. Arkansas, — U.S. -, -, 115 S.Ct. 1914, 1916, 131 L.Ed.2d 976 (1995) (noting that the “knock and announce” principle of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has roots in the common law that antedate the Constitution). See generally Fed.R.Crim.P. 41(c)(1); Jones v. United States, 357 U.S. 493, 498, 78 S.Ct. 1253, 1256-57, 2 L.Ed.2d 1514 (1958); Frank v. Maryland, 359 U.S. 360, 366, 79 S.Ct. 804, 808-09, 3 L.Ed.2d 877 (1959).⁵

Because our law and legal traditions long have recognized the special vulnerability of those awakened in the night by a police intrusion at their dwelling place, our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence counsels that, when a knock at the door comes in the dead of night, the nature and effect of the intrusion into the privacy of the dwelling place must be examined with the greatest of caution. Therefore, in recognizing the particular intrusiveness of nocturnal encounters with the police at one’s dwelling, the courts of appeals have stressed the impact of such encounters on the individual dwelling there. For instance, our colleagues in the First Circuit have noted specifically that the reason for limiting nocturnal searches is to prevent “abrupt intrusions on sleeping residents in the dark.” United States v. Young, 877 F.2d 1099, 1104 (1st Cir.1989) (Breyer, J.). Likewise, the Second Circuit has noted the “peculiar abrasiveness” of intrusions by law enforcement officials at night. United States v. Ravich, 421 F.2d 1196, 1201 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 834, 91 S.Ct. 69, 27 L.Ed.2d 66 (1970). And the Tenth Circuit, in Harless v. Turner, 456 F.2d 1337, 1338-39 (10th Cir.1972) (citing Villano v. United States, 310 F.2d 680, 684 (10th Cir.1962); United States v. Page, 302 F.2d 81 (9th Cir.1962)), invalidated an individual’s consent to search because it was obtained after the individual was “routed” out of bed in the middle of the night.

With this deeply-rooted principle in mind, we turn to the conduct of Deputies Hurrle and Lent on the night of September 26, 1994. The two deputies began the attempt to rouse the appellants by knocking on the door of a quiet motel room for three minutes, all the while getting no response. During this time, the deputies took turns knocking. They announced verbally that they were police and that they wanted the occupants to open the door. Deputy Lent testified that either he or Deputy Hurrle at some point commanded, “Police. Open up the door.” “[T]here is no rule of private or public conduct which makes it illegal per se, or a condemned invasion of the person’s right of privacy, for anyone openly and peaceably, at high noon, to walk up the steps and knock on the front door of any man’s ‘castle’ with the honest intent of asking questions of the occupant thereof — whether the questioner be a pollster, a salesman, or an officer of the law.” Davis v. United States, 327 F.2d 301, 303 (9th Cir.1964).⁶ The same does not hold true, however, when the knocking occurs in the middle of the night and lasts for three full minutes. See id. at 304 (“The time of day, coupled with the openness of the officers’ approach ..., rules out the possible dangers to their persons which might have resulted from a similar unannounced call in the dead of the night.”); United States v. Serna-Barreto, 842 F.2d 965, 967 (7th Cir.1988) (length of time is most important consideration in determining whether restraint is investigatory stop or full-fledged arrest). In this case, the intrusion did not occur until late at night after the appellants had retired. Mr. Jerez and Mr. Solis did not answer the door for the entire three minutes, notwithstanding the utterance of the command, “Open the door.” The refusal to open the door continued for another minute or two even after Deputy Hurrle began knocking on, and shining a light through, the room’s window. The three minutes of silence- by Room 161’s occupants, when combined with the other circumstances of this case, especially the lateness of the hour, amounted to a refusal by Mr. Jerez and Mr. Solis to answer the door.⁷ Once the officers had been refused admittance, their continued efforts to rouse the occupants out of bed certainly prevented them from ignoring the continued requests and from maintaining the privacy and solitude of their dwelling. The deputies’ persistence, in the face of the refusal to admit, transformed what began as an attempt to engage in a consensual encounter into an investigatory stop. See United States v. Wilson, 953 F.2d 116 (4th Cir.1991) (officer’s prolonged and persistent questioning after defendant conveyed unwillingness to continue airport encounter transformed consensual encounter into Fourth Amendment seizure). The officers’ persistence destroyed any possibility that the occupants could return to sleep and ignore the officers.

In addition to the deputies’ knocking on the room’s only door for three minutes, Deputy Hurrle knocked on the room’s only window for one-and-a-half to two minutes, loud enough that it could be heard from the interior hallway on the other side of the room. Wearing a windbreaker with a drug-related, law enforcement emblem, he then shone his flashlight through the small opening in the window’s drapes, illuminating Mr. Jerez as he lay in the bed. This escalation of the encounter renders totally without foundation any characterization that the prolonged ' confrontation was a consensual encounter rather than an investigative stop. In United States v. Packer, 15 F.3d 654 (7th Cir.1994), for instance, we determined that the defendant had been seized when two police officers parked their cars on either side of the defendant’s car and shone a “take down” light through the defendant’s windows. When a person is in a confined area, encircling the area in an intimidating fashion contributes to a reasonable belief that ignoring the law enforcement presence is not an option. See United States v. Pavelski, 789 F.2d 485, 488 (7th Cir.) (finding that a reasonable person, “bounded on three sides by police patrol cars, would not have believed that he was free to leave”), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 917, 107 S.Ct. 322, 93 L.Ed.2d 295 (1986). Deputies Hurrle and Lent took additional actions beyond knocking on the door because they believed that, though “there was someone in the room,” the “persons were just not responding to [their] knock[s]” and that the occupants were refusing to answer the door “voluntarily.” Tr. at 93. By their own admissions, the deputies took' these additional actions to produce a response in spite of the appellants’ initial rebuff. “But if the person refuses to answer and the police take additional steps ... to obtain an answer, then the Fourth Amendment imposes some minimal level of objective justification to validate the detention or seizure.” INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 216-17, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 1763, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1984).

Simply stated, this is a case in which the law enforcement officers refused to take “no” for an answer. Their actions, when objectively assessed,. “convey[ed] a message that compliance with their requests [was] required.” Bostick, 501 U.S. at 435, 111 S.Ct. at 2386. When Mr. Solis finally opened the door to his motel room in his underwear, he was submitting to the deputies’ show of authority.⁸ We hold that the totality of the circumstances surrounding this encounter— the late hour of the episode, the three minutes of knocking on the door, the commands and requests to open the door, the one-and-a-half to two minutes of knocking on the outside window, and the shining of the flashlight through the small opening in the window’s drapes onto the face of Mr. Jerez as he lay in bed — makes clear that a seizure took place. The record simply will not support the con-elusion that a reasonable person in the position of Mr. Jerez and Mir. Solis would have felt free to ignore the deputies and to continue about their business. A reasonable person in their situation could conclude only that the deputies would not leave unless the dpor was opened. Therefore, Mr. Solis and Mr. Jerez were seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment on the night of September 26,1994.

B. Reasonable Suspicion

Because Deputies Hurrle’s and Lent’s actions, when considered in their totality, amount to an investigatory stop, the deputies must have had “a reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts that criminal activity ‘may [have] be[en] afoot.’ ” United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 1585, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989) (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 30, 88 S.Ct. at 1884). “Reasonable suspicion” is “more than an inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or hunch.” Id. (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S.Ct. at 1883) (internal quotations omitted). It is a concept that “is not ‘readily, or even usefully, reduced to a neat set of legal rules.’ ” Id. (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 232, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 2329, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983)). In determining whether a reasonable suspicion existed, we must consider the “totality of the circumstances.” Id. at 8, 109 S.Ct. at 1585; United States v. Odum, 72 F.3d 1279, 1284 (7th Cir.1995). In the end, the analytical process requires a practical determination; it “does not deal with hard certainties, but with probabilities.” United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 418, 101 S.Ct. 690, 695, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981). We must reach “a common sense conclusion” as to whether the articulable facts to which the deputies point reasonably would “raise a suspicion that the particular individual[s] being stopped [were] engaged in wrongdoing.” Id,

Although we defer to findings of historical fact and “give due weight to inferences drawn from those facts by resident judges and local law enforcement officers,” we review de novo whether the officers had reasonable suspicion to detain the appellants. Ornelas v. United States, — U.S. -, -, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 1663, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996).⁹ Deputies Hurrle and Lent articulated four facts that made them suspect Mr. Solis, may have been involved in criminal activity: (1) He had a two-door vehicle, a “target” vehicle; (2) His vehicle had a license plate from Florida, a source state; (3) His vehicle was parked near an airport and an interstate; and (4) A criminal history check revealed that he had a suspended driver’s license and an arrest or conviction for smuggling some type of contraband into a Florida jail. We begin by noting that each of these facts, standing alone, clearly would not be enough to give rise to a reasonable suspicion that Mr. Solis and his companion were involved in drug, or some other illicit, activity. The first three are true of innocent travelers. Similarly, Mr. Solis’ prior record would not be enough by itself to justify the stop. See United States v. Davis, 94 F.3d 1465, 1469 (10th Cir.1996); United States v. Santillanes, 848 F.2d 1103, 1108 (10th Cir.1988). Moreover, the criminal history check did not reveal the type of contraband allegedly smuggled into the jail; for example, the contraband could have been money, food or cigarettes. See Fla. Stat. Ann. § 951.22 (West 1995). The deputies, based on a reasonable belief that Mr. Solis had a suspended license, could have stopped Mr. Solis had they observed him driving, see Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 663, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 1401, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979), but the belief that he had a suspended license and a prior smuggling incident would not justify a stop on the street or in his motel room.

Although several innocent facts may, when considered together, add up to reasonable suspicion, Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 9-10, 109 S.Ct. at 1586-87, the particular facts articulated in this case do not. Instead, we find the factors in this case to be analogous to those the Supreme Court considered in Reid v. Georgia, 448 U.S. 438, 100 S.Ct. 2752, 65 L.Ed.2d 890 (1980). In Reid, a DEA agent stopped the defendant in the Atlanta Airport because the defendant’s characteristics and actions fit the “drug courier profile”: (1) The defendant arrived from Fort Lauderdale, a city the agent knew to be a principal source of cocaine; (2) He arrived early in the morning, when law enforcement activity is diminished; (3) He and his companion appeared to be concealing that the two were traveling together; and (4) He and his companion had no luggage except for their shoulder bags. Id. at 440-41, 100 S.Ct. at 2754. The Supreme Court concluded that “the agent could not, as a matter of law, have reasonably suspected the petitioner of criminal activity on the basis of these observed circumstances.” Id. at 441, 100 S.Ct. at 2754. The only fact that related to the individuals’ conduct, the Court found, was that the defendant preceded his companion and occasionally looked backward at him. The Court found that the other circumstances describe a large number of “presumably innocent travelers, who would be subject to virtually random seizures were the Court to conclude that as little foundation as there was in this case could justify a seizure.” Id. In this case, the facts known to the deputies were less suspicious than the ones found insufficient as a matter of law in Reid. Even in combination, the articulated characteristics could be ascribed generally to innocent travelers. See United States v. Odum, 72 F.3d 1279, 1285 (7th Cir.1995) (distinguishing from Reid an instance in which a number of facts were raised that could not be ascribed generally to innocent travelers); United States v. McCarthur, 6 F.3d 1270, 1278 & n. 3 (7th Cir.1993) (same); Moya v. United States, 761 F.2d 322, 325 (7th Cir.1984) (“We must be especially cautious when the evidence that is alleged to establish probable cause is entirely consistent with innocent behavior.”); United States v. Black, 675 F.2d 129, 136-37 (7th Cir.1982) (holding that, although the totality of circumstances supported a reasonable suspicion, it was not enough merely that the passenger had arrived from Fort Lauder-dale, was the first off the plane, deplaned speedily and in a disoriented state, and appeared nervous), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1068, 103 S.Ct. 1520, 75 L.Ed.2d 945 (1983). We have found justification lacking in eases similar to the one we are considering today. In Packer, we held that a citizen’s complaint that a “suspicious” car, with four individuals and fogged windows, was parked on the street at 1 a.m. for more than an hour was not sufficient to justify a Terry stop. 15 F.3d at 658-59. In Pavelski, we found that a deputy failed to articulate facts indicating criminal activity when he described a car, bearing out-of-state license plates, that contained four men who refused to make eye contact with him and that made a sharp right-hand turn. 789 F.2d at 489. Cf. Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 52, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 2641, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979) (noting that the “fact that appellant was in a neighborhood frequented by drug users, standing alone, is not a basis for concluding that appellant himself was engaged in criminal conduct”). The deputies simply cannot point to any facts which would give rise to a reasonable suspicion that Mr. Jerez and Mr. Solis “ha[d] committed or [were] about to commit a crime” Royer, 460 U.S. at 498, 103 S.Ct. at 1324 (plurality opinion).

C. The Consent to Search

A consent to search following an illegal seizure is valid only if the evidence uncovered during the consent search has been come upon “by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.” Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 599, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 2259, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975) (quoting Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 417, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963)).¹⁰ In obedience to the mandate of Brown, to determine whether the acquisition of evidence pursuant to consent is purged of the taint of an antecedent illegal seizure, we place a “heavy burden” on the government and look to “(1) the temporal proximity of the illegal detention [and the defendants’ consent]; (2) the presence of intervening factors between the two events; and (3) the circumstances surrounding, and the nature of, the official misconduct.” United States v. Sanchez-Jaramillo, 637 F.2d 1094, 1099 (7th Cir.) (citing Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. at 603-04, 96 S.Ct. at 2261-62), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 862, 101 S.Ct. 166, 66 L.Ed.2d 79 (1980).

In this case, the consent to search followed almost immediately after the illegal seizure. Indeed, a short conversation was all that occurred between the two events, and that short conversation was part of the “res gestae” of obtaining the consent to search.¹¹ Moreover, no intervening event of any significance occurred between the illegal seizure and the consent to break the causal chain. The testimony of the officers establishes that their conduct “had a quality of purposefulness.” Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. at 606, 95 S.Ct. at 2262.¹² In concluding that the.illegal seizure in this case vitiated the appellants’ subsequent consent, we follow the strong body of case law in our circuit, as well as in other circuits, that has held, typically after applying Brown v. Illinois, that the voluntary consents at issue were tainted by illegal stops, detentions or arrests. See United States v. Novak, 870 F.2d 1345, 1353 (7th Cir.1989); see also United States v. Valencia, 913 F.2d 378, 382 (7th Cir.1990) (“If the agents illegally seized Valencia, the illegal seizure would have tainted his subsequent consent, since his consent presumably was the product of his detention.”).¹³

Conclusion

Because the seizure was not supported by reasonable suspicion and therefore vitiated the subsequent consent to search, we reverse the district court’s judgment and hold that the evidence found in the motel room must be suppressed. The case is remanded for further proceedings.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

1 . The record is unclear as to whether the criminal background check revealed an arrest or conviction for smuggling contraband into the jail. Deputy Lent testified that the background check revealed a conviction, but Deputy Hurrle testified that it showed an arrest. Counsel for the appellants states that Mr. Solis did not have a conviction but an arrest that had not been processed.

2 . Deputy Hurrle testified that the officers did not “continue pounding” on the door for the entire three minutes, but that they did knock on the door “[o]n and off” during the entire three-minute period. Tr. at 16. The district court found that the deputies "knocked on the door for several minutes without a response.” Order at 3.

3 . See United States v. Rodriguez, 69 F.3d 136, 141 (7th Cir.1995) ("If a reasonable person would have felt free to disregard the police and go about his business, the encounter is consensual.”) (citations omitted); Boden, 854 F.2d at 991 ("There is no 'seizure' subject to the Fourth Amendment unless a reasonable person in Bo-den's position would have believed that he was not free to ignore Agent Oitker (and the other agents) and continue on his way; the test is objective.”); Notorianni, 729 F.2d at 522 ("[T]he accosted individual would not be deemed to have been seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment unless a reasonable person in his position would have believed that he was not free to ignore the agents and continue on his way.”); United States v. Black, 675 F.2d 129, 134-35 (7th Cir.1982) ("Thus, if officers have intimidated an individual through the use of a show of authority sufficient to make it apparent that the individual is not free to ignore the officer[s] and proceed on his way, a seizure will be found.”), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1068, 103 S.Ct. 1520, 75 L.Ed.2d 945 (1983).

4 . It is a well-established principle that the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures is not limited to one’s home but extends as well to a person’s privacy in temporary dwelling places such as hotel or motel rooms. Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 490, 84 S.Ct. 889, 893, 11 L.Ed.2d 856 (1964); United States v. Cotnam, 88 F.3d 487, 495 (7th Cir.), cert. denied,-U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 326, 136 L.Ed.2d 240 (1996); United States v. Rosario, 962 F.2d 733, 736 (7th Cir.1992).

5 . Monroe v. Pape and Frank v. Maryland have been abrogated, for reasons unrelated to the discussion in the text, by subsequent Supreme Court decisions. See Monell v. New York City Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978) (overruling Monroe); Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967) (overruling Frank ).

6 . See also United States v. Winsor, 846 F.2d 1569, 1573 (9th Cir.1988) (en banc); United States v. Roberts, 747 F.2d 537 (9th Cir.1984); Cuevas-Ortega v. INS, 588 F.2d 1274 (9th Cir.1979). In those cases, the occupants voluntarily opened the door after a daytime knock. These cases, like Davis, simply hold that a voluntary response to a knock on the door during daytime hours does not implicate the Fourth Amendment. Notably, in Winsor, although the court noted that a mere knocking does not implicate the Fourth Amendment, it held the defendant had not opened the door voluntarily because, as in this case, the police commanded, "Police. Open the door.” Winsor, 846 F.2d at 1571, 1573 n. 3 (citing cases) ("Compliance with a police 'demand' is not consent.”) (internal quotations omitted).

7 . See United States v. Ramos, 923 F.2d 1346, 1356 (9th Cir.1991) (“A failure to answer a knock and announcement has long been equated with a refusal to admit the search party-"). Indeed, in the context of "knock and announce” cases, courts routinely find that officers have been constructively refused admittance after only a few knocks. See United States v. Moore, 91 F.3d 96, 98 (10th Cir.1996) (noting that "[i]f the occupants do not admit the officers within a reasonable period of time, the officers may be deemed to be constructively refused admittance”); Ramos, 923 F.2d at 1355-56 (after two requests and forty-five seconds); United States v. Wood, 879 F.2d 927, 932-33 (D.C.Cir.1989) (after two requests and announcements).

8 . For a seizure to occur, a person must submit to a “show of authority.” Kernats v. O’Sullivan, 35 F.3d 1171, 1178 (7th Cir.1994); Black, 675 F.2d at 134—35; see California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 628, 111 S.Ct. 1547, 1551, 113 L.Ed.2d 690 (1991) (A "show of authority” exists when “the officer's words and actions would have ... convey[ed] the message [to a reasonable person] that he was not free to disregard the police and go about his business."). This legal principle explains why a seizure does not occur if a person does not comply with an officer’s command to "stop.” Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 629, 111 S.Ct. at 1552. In this case, Mr. Solis complied with the officers' demand to open the door, thereby submitting to a "show of authority.” See Brower v. County of Inyo, 489 U.S. 593, 597-98, 109 S.Ct. 1378, 1381-82, 103 L.Ed.2d 628 (1989); see also United States v. Kohler, 836 F.2d 885, 888 (5th Cir.1988) ("CT]he stop occurred when the agent dressed in plain clothes knocked on the door and identified himself as a border patrol officer.”); United States v. Almand, 565 F.2d 927, 929 (5th Cir.) (seizure occurred when Almand opened the door and stepped out in response to officer's knocking on door), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 824, 99 S.Ct. 92, 58 L.Ed.2d 116 (1978).

9 . In its order, the district court did not find independently that the deputies had a reasonable suspicion, but it did adopt the recommendation of the magistrate judge. The magistrate judge found that the deputies had "adequate justification,” "albeit not necessarily rising to the level of reasonable suspicion.” Magistrate Judge’s Recommendation at 7.

10 . The district court found that, under Schneck-loth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973), Mr. Solis and Mr. Jerez voluntarily consented to the entry into their motel room and to the search of their luggage. However, the “inquiry does not end with a determination that [the] consent was voluntary, for if the agents had improperly 'seized' the defendant[s], [their] consent to a search would have been tainted and the evidence should have been suppressed." United States v. Morgan, 725 F.2d 56, 58 (7th Cir.1984); see Royer, 460 U.S. at 507-08, 103 S.Ct. at 1329 (plurality opinion) ("Because ... Royer was being illegally detained when he consented to the search of his luggage, we agree that the consent was tainted by the illegality and was ineffective to justify the search.”); Notorianni, 729 F.2d at 521-22 ("If ... there was an unconstitutional seizure of his person, the consent he gave was vitiated, and the fruits of the search should have been suppressed.”); United States v. Melendez-Garcia, 28 F.3d 1046, 1054 (10th Cir.1994) ("[N]ot only must the government show that consent is voluntary in fact, but it must also demonstrate a break in the causal connection between the illegality and the consent, so that the court will be satisfied that the consent was 'sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint.’ ") (quoting Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 486, 83 S.Ct. at 416-17); 3 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 8.2(d) (3d ed. 1996) ("[E]vidence obtained by the purported consent should be held admissible only if it is determined that the consent was both voluntary and not an exploitation of the prior illegality.... [T]he fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine also extends to invalidate consents which are voluntary.”).

11 . See Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U.S. 687, 691, 102 S.Ct. 2664, 2667, 73 L.Ed.2d 314 (1982) (taint not purged even though six hours passed between illegal arrest and confession); Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. at 604, 95 S.Ct. at 2262 (finding that two hours was temporally proximate).

12 . Like the detectives in Brown, Deputies Hurrle and Lent "embarked upon this expedition for evidence in the hope that something might turn up[; t]he manner in which [the seizure] was effected gives the appearance of having been calculated to cause surprise, fright, and confusion.” 422 U.S. at 605, 95 S.Ct. at 2262. That the method employed was calculated to cause surprise, fright, and confusion was confirmed by Deputy Lent: "[0]ur reasons for sticking around were — and for proceeding to knock on the window were — [it] was beginning to be a late hour. [The p]eop!e [in the motel room were] from a strange city. [They m]ay in fact feel threatened if someone comes and knocks at the door, [at a] late hour. That's [also] why we proceeded to present ourselves as officers.” Tr. at 93.

13 .See United States v. Babwah, 972 F.2d 30, 34 (2d Cir.1992); United States v. Ceballos, 812 F.2d 42, 49-50 (2d Cir.1987); United States v. McCraw, 920 F.2d 224, 230 (4th Cir.1990); United States v. Gooding, 695 F.2d 78, 84 (4th Cir.1982); United States v. Chavez-Villarreal, 3 F.3d 124, 127-28 (5th Cir.1993); United States v. Cherry, 759 F.2d 1196, 1211-12 (5th Cir.1985) (remand); United States v. Grant, 920 F.2d 376, 388 (6th Cir.1990); United States v. Ramirez, 91 F.3d 1297, 1302-04 (9th Cir.1996); United States v. Suarez, 902 F.2d 1466, 1468 (9th Cir.1990); United States v. Delgadillo-Velasquez, 856 F.2d 1292, 1299-1300 (9th Cir.1988); United States v. Howard, 828 F.2d 552, 556 (9th Cir.1987); United States v. Melendez-Garcia, 28 F.3d 1046, 1053-56 (10th Cir.1994) (remand); United States v. Guillen-Cazares, 989 F.2d 380, 382, 384 (10th Cir.1993); United States v. Valdez, 931 F.2d 1448, 1452 (11th Cir.1991); United States v. Timberlake, 896 F.2d 592, 595, 596 n. 2 (D.C.Cir.1990).