DocketNumber: No. MV-99-614203
Citation Numbers: 2000 Conn. Super. Ct. 6740
Judges: DOMNARSKI, JUDGE.
Filed Date: 6/2/2000
Status: Non-Precedential
Modified Date: 7/5/2016
On November 17, 1999, at approximately 1:00 a.m., New London police officers, Wayne Neff and Michelle Tryon, were in a marked police vehicle on Tilley Street in New London. They observed a Ford Explorer traveling westbound on Tilley Street and took up a position behind that vehicle. They followed that vehicle down Tilley Street to its intersection to Washington Street. At Washington Street the vehicle turned left onto Washington Street. The police vehicle followed the Ford Explorer on Washington Street which turns into Coit Street. At the intersection of Coit and Truman Street, there is a traffic light which was red and the Explorer stopped. While the Explorer was stopped, a passenger exited. The passenger was recognized as an individual known by the police officers to be associated with drug activity. When the light turned green, the Explorer turned left. Both officers testified that the Explorer did not display a turn signal. Officer Wayne Neff who was driving the police vehicle activated its lights and siren and pulled over the Ford Explorer. Officer Neff stated he stopped the Explorer because of its failure to give a turn signal, which is a violation of Connecticut General Statute §
In making its decision, the court is guided by the language of the case cited by the defendant, State v. Donahue,
Article first, §§ 7 and 9 of our state constitution permit a police officer in appropriate circumstances and in an appropriate manner detain an individual for investigative purposes even though there is no probable cause to make an arrest. In determining whether the detention was justified in a given case, a court must consider if [b]ased upon the whole picture the detaining officers [had] a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped criminal activity. . . . A court reviewing the legality of a stop must therefore examine the specific information available to the police officer at the time of the initial intrusion and any rational inferences to be derived therefrom. . . .
. . .
Police have the right to stop for investigation short of arrest where a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot. . . . [I]n justifying the particular intrusion the police officer must be able to point to CT Page 6742 specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion. (Citations omitted, internal quotation marks omitted.)
State v. Donahue,
The court understands the defendant to argue that in this case there was no reasonable articulable suspicion to stop the defendant's motor vehicle. His claim is that he was stopped simply because he was in a high crime target area, early in the morning and a person associated with drug activity exited his vehicle. If there was nothing more to justify the stop, the court might begin to discern the "insidious specter of profiling" which concerned the court in Donahue, infra.
In this case, however, there was testimony from both police officers that the defendant's motor vehicle did not show a turn signal when executing a left turn. The failure to indicate a turn signal is a violation of Connecticut General Statutes and does give rise to a reasonable and articulable suspicion that proscribed activity has occurred. Having such a reasonable and articulable suspicion, the police officers were justified in pulling over the defendant's motor vehicle and conducting their initial investigation. That initial investigation led the police officers to a determination that there was probable cause to arrest the defendant for driving under the influence.
Accordingly, the motion to dismiss is denied.
Domnarski, J.