Police in Wisconsin may briefly detain a person — conduct what courts call a Terry stop — only when they have reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. Reasonable suspicion is a legal standard that requires specific, articulable facts; it is more than an officer’s hunch, and it is not satisfied simply by a person’s presence in a neighborhood where crimes occur. Courts have said that for years. A 2022 Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision applied that principle to a scenario that comes up more often than many people realize: someone sitting in a parked car at night in a high-crime area.
In State v. Donte Quintell McBride (2021AP311-CR, December 20, 2022, District 1 — an unpublished decision, not recommended for publication), officers came upon a car sitting in an alley in such an area late at night with its lights off. McBride was the passenger, not the driver. When an officer shone a spotlight on the vehicle, McBride moved. The officer cited the high-crime location, the late hour, and that movement as reasons to conduct a stop. The court found that these facts were not enough. Presence in a high-crime area is not, by itself, suspicion of anything. Moving in response to having a spotlight directed at you is what any person — innocent or not — might do. Neither factor, alone or together, rises to the level of reasonable suspicion.
The court also noted that the officer’s stated alternative justification — that the car was improperly parked and blocking the alley — was directly contradicted by the squad car’s own video footage, which showed the vehicle parked to the side of the alley without obstructing traffic. When an officer’s testimony is refuted by the officer’s own equipment, courts take that seriously.
The result: the court reversed the circuit court’s denial of the motion to suppress. The pills recovered during the encounter — in a pill bottle and in McBride’s pocket — came out of an unlawful seizure, and suppression was the proper remedy. The decision was not unanimous; a dissenting judge would have found reasonable suspicion in the improper parking alone. Note also that the opinion is unpublished: it is not precedent and binds no Wisconsin court, though as an authored opinion issued after July 1, 2009 it may be cited for its persuasive value under Wis. Stat. § 809.23(3)(b). What it offers is a worked example of how a court weighs these facts, not a rule you can rely on as settled.
What this means if you’ve been stopped. Wisconsin courts will examine not just what an officer says, but what the specific facts were — and whether they actually support the legal standard. If you were detained while sitting in a parked car, stopped while walking through a neighborhood, or seized in circumstances where the officer’s stated reasons seem thin, the constitutionality of that stop is one of the first things a defense attorney will evaluate. Suppression of evidence obtained in an unlawful stop changes the trajectory of a case. Understanding your rights during a police stop and what police can and cannot search in your car are starting points — but if charges have been filed, you need more than information. A free consultation is available at Carson Law Office.
About the author. Christopher S. Carson, J.D., M.A., has practiced law in Milwaukee for 34 years. He holds an M.A. in International Security Studies from Georgetown University, where he was the Bradley Fellow, was formerly with the American Enterprise Institute, and is a contributing editor at the New English Review. Read the full biography.
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Related reading: Arrested in Wisconsin? Your Rights During a Stop, a Search, and Questioning · Can the Police Search My Car Without a Warrant in Wisconsin? · What to Do If You Are Arrested in Wisconsin
This article is general information about Wisconsin law, not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.