Enjoy
Officer Bright claims that he had a “reasonable suspicion” that Northrup was engaged in
criminal activity based on two undisputed facts: (1) Northrup was visibly carrying a gun on his
holster, and (2) Bright was responding to a 911 call. That reasonable suspicion, Bright claims,
justified his disarmament, detention, and citation of Northrup. Before addressing whether he is
right, we should mention a few guiding principles.
In today’s case, Officer Bright relies on two “specific and articulable facts”: Northrup’s
open possession of a firearm and the 911 call about what Northrup was doing. The Fourth
Amendment no doubt permitted Bright to approach Northrup and to ask him questions. But that
is not what he did. He relied on these facts to stop Northrup, disarm him, and handcuff him.
Ohio law permits the open carry of firearms, Ohio Rev. Code § 9.68(C)(1), and thus permitted
Northrup to do exactly what he was doing. While the dispatcher and motorcyclist may not have
known the details of Ohio’s open-carry firearm law, the police officer had no basis for such
uncertainty. If it is appropriate to presume that citizens know the parameters of the criminal
laws, it is surely appropriate to expect the same of law enforcement officers—at least with regard
to unambiguous statutes. Heien v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 530, 540 (2014).
Clearly established law required Bright to point to evidence that Northrup may have been
“armed and dangerous.” Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 64 (1968) (emphasis added). Yet all
he ever saw was that Northrup was armed—and legally so. To allow stops in this setting “would
effectively eliminate Fourth Amendment protections for lawfully armed persons.” United States
v. King, 990 F.2d 1552, 1559 (10th Cir. 1993); accord United States v. Ubiles, 224 F.3d 213, 218
(3d Cir. 2000); United States v. Black, 707 F.3d 531, 540 (4th Cir. 2013); United States v. Roch,
5 F.3d 894, 899 (5th Cir. 1993).
