Torry v. City of Chicago, No. 18-1935 (7th Cir. 2019)
Annotate this CaseThree Chicago police officers stopped three black men in a grey sedan to investigate a shooting that had happened nearby a few hours earlier. When the passengers sued a year later, none of the officers remembered the Terry stop. They relied on other evidence to show that reasonable suspicion had existed. Cell phone footage taken by one of the plaintiffs during the encounter depicted Sergeant King, the officer who initiated the stop, citing the plaintiffs’ suspicious behavior in the area of the shooting as the reason that he had pulled them over. A police report showed that dispatches to officers, including King, identified the suspects as three black men in a grey car. The descriptions of the car’s model varied. The district court held that these descriptions were close enough to justify the Terry stop and that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because the stop did not violate clearly established law. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting a “suggestion” that the defendants’ failure of memory was a concession of liability. The Fourth Amendment does not govern how an officer proves reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop; he can rely on evidence other than memory. The police report demonstrates what King knew and the cell-phone video shows him giving the shooting as the reason for the stop.
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