Reasonable Suspicion and Terry Stops: Flight in High Crime Areas, Slides of Law

Download Reasonable Suspicion and Terry Stops: Flight in High Crime Areas and more Slides Law in PDF only on Docsity! OCTOBER TERM, 1999 Syllabus ILLINOIS v. WARDLOW CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF ILLINOIS No. 98-1036. Argued November 2, 1999-Decided January 12, 2000 Respondent Wardlow fled upon seeing a caravan of police vehicles con- verge on an area of Chicago known for heavy narcotics trafficking. When Officers Nolan and Harvey caught up with him on the street, Nolan stopped him and conducted a protective patdown search for weap- ons because in his experience there were usually weapons in the vicinity of narcotics transactions. Discovering a handgun, the officers arrested Wardlow. The Illinois trial court denied his motion to suppress, finding the gun was recovered during a lawful stop and frisk. He was con- victed of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon. In reversing, the State Appellate Court found that Nolan did not have reasonable suspicion to make the stop under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1. The State Supreme Court affirmed, determining that sudden flight in a high crime area does not create a reasonable suspicion justifying a Terry stop because flight may simply be an exercise of the right to "go on one's way," see Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491. Held: The officers' actions did not violate the Fourth Amendment. This case, involving a brief encounter between a citizen and a police officer on a public street, is governed by Terry, under which an officer who has a reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot may conduct a brief, investigatory stop. While "reasonable suspicion" is a less demanding standard than probable cause, there must be at least a minimal level of objective justification for the stop. An individual's presence in a "high crime area," standing alone, is not enough to support a reasonable, particularized suspicion of criminal activity, but a loca- tion's characteristics are relevant in determining whether the circum- stances are sufficiently suspicious to warrant further investigation, Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S. 143, 144, 147-148. In this case, moreover, it was also Wardlow's unprovoked flight that aroused the officers' suspi- cion. Nervous, evasive behavior is another pertinent factor in deter- mining reasonable suspicion, e. g., United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 885, and headlong flight is the consummate act of evasion. In r'eviewing the propriety of an officer's conduct, courts do not have avail- able empirical studies dealing with inferences from suspicious behavior, and this Court cannot reasonably demand scientific certainty when none exists. Thus, the reasonable suspicion determination must be based on commonsense judgments and inferences about human behavior. See ILLINOIS v. WARDLOW Syllabus United States v. Cortez, 449 U. S. 411, 418. Officer Nolan was justified in suspecting that Wardlow was involved in criminal activity, and, there- fore, in investigating further. Such a holding is consistent with the de- cision in Florida v. Royer, supra, at 498, that an individual, when ap- proached, has a right to ignore the police and go about his business. Unprovoked flight is the exact opposite of "going about one's business." While flight is not necessarily indicative of ongoing criminal activity, Terry recognized that officers can detain individuals to resolve ambigu- ities in their conduct, 392 U. S., at 30, and thus accepts the risk that officers may stop innocent people. If they do not learn facts rising to the level of probable cause, an individual must be allowed to go on his way. But in this case the officers found that Wardlow possessed a hand- gun and arrested him for violating a state law. The propriety of that arrest is not before the Court. Pp. 123-126. 183 Ill. 2d 306, 701 N. E. 2d 484, reversed and remanded. REHNQUIST, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which O'CON- NOR, SCALIA, KENNEDY, and THomAs, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which SOUTER, GINS- BURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined, post, p. 126. Richard A. Devine argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were James E. Ryan, Attorney General of Illinois, Joel D. Bertocchi, Solicitor General, Renee G. Goldfarb, Theodore Fotios Burtzos, and Veronica Ximena Calderon. Malcolm L. Stewart argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Waxman, Assistant Attorney General Robinson, Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben, and Deborah Watson. James B. Koch argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Lynn N. Weisberg and Thomas G. Gardiner. * *Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were fied for the State of Ohio et al. by Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General of Ohio, Edward B. Foley, State Solicitor, Robert C. Maier and Alejandro Almaguer, Assist- ant Solicitors, and Thomas R. Keller, Acting Attorney General of Hawaii, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Bill Pryor of Alabama, Ken Salazar of Colorado, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Cite as: 528 U. S. 119 (2000) Opinion of the Court 2d, at 311-312, 701 N. E. 2d, at 486-487. The court then determined that flight may simply be an exercise of this right to "go on one's way," and, thus, could not constitute reasonable suspicion justifying a Terry stop. 183 Ill. 2d, at 312, 701 N. E. 2d, at 487. The Illinois Supreme Court also rejected the argument that flight combined with the fact that it occurred in a high crime area supported a finding of reasonable suspicion be- cause the "high crime area" factor was not sufficient stand- ing alone to justify a Terry stop. Finding no independently suspicious circumstances to support an investigatory deten- tion, the court held that the stop and subsequent arrest vio- lated the Fourth Amendment. We granted certiorari, 526 U. S. 1097 (1999), and now reverse.' This case, involving a brief encounter between a citizen and a police officer on a public street, is governed by the analysis we first applied in Terry. In Terry, we held that an officer may, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, con- duct a brief, investigatory stop when the officer has a reason- able, articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. 392 U. S., at 30. While "reasonable suspicion" is a less de- manding standard than probable cause and requires a show- ing considerably less than preponderance of the evidence, the Fourth Amendment requires at least a minimal level of objective justification for making the stop. United States v. Sokolow, 490 U. S. 1, 7 (1989). The officer must be able I The state courts have differed on whether unprovoked flight is suffi- cient grounds to constitute reasonable suspicion. See, e. g., State v. An- derson, 155 Wis. 2d 77, 454 N. W. 2d 763 (1990) (flight alone is sufficient); Platt v. State, 589 N. E. 2d 222 (Ind. 1992) (same); Harris v. State, 205 Ga. App. 813, 423 S. E. 2d 723 (1992) (flight in high crime area sufficient); State v. Hicks, 241 Neb. 357, 488 N. W. 2d 359 (1992) (flight is not enough); State v. Tucker, 136 N. J. 158, 642 A. 2d 401 (1994) (same); People v. Shabaz, 424 Mich. 42, 378 N. W. 2d 451 (1985) (same); People v. Wilson, 784 P. 2d 325 (Colo. 1989) (same). ILLINOIS v. WARDLOW Opinion of the Court to articulate more than an "inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 'hunch"' of criminal activity. Terry, supra, at 27.2 Nolan and Harvey were among eight officers in a four-car caravan that was converging on an area known for heavy narcotics trafficking, and the officers anticipated encounter- ing a large number of people in the area, including drug cus- tomers and individuals serving as lookouts. App. 8. It was in this context that Officer Nolan decided to investigate Wardlow after observing him flee. An individual's presence in an area of expected criminal activity, standing alone, is not enough to support a reasonable, particularized suspicion that the person is committing a crime. Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47 (1979). But officers are not required to ignore the relevant characteristics of a location in determining whether the circumstances are sufficiently suspicious to warrant fur- ther investigation. Accordingly, we have previously noted the fact that the stop occurred in a "high crime area" among the relevant contextual considerations in a Terry analysis. Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S. 143, 144, 147-148 (1972). In this case, moreover, it was not merely respondent's presence in an area of heavy narcotics trafficking that aroused the officers' suspicion, but his unprovoked flight upon noticing the police. Our cases have also recognized that ner- vous, evasive behavior is a pertinent factor in determining reasonable suspicion. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 885 (1975); Florida v. Rodriguez, 469 U. S. 1, 6 (1984) (per curiam); United States v. Sokolow, supra, at 8-9. Headlong flight-wherever it occurs-is the consummate act of evasion: It is not necessarily indicative of wrongdoing, but it is certainly suggestive of such. In reviewing the propri- ety of an officer's conduct, courts do not have available em- pirical studies dealing with inferences drawn from suspicious 2 We granted certiorari solely on the question whether the initial stop was supported by reasonable suspicion. Therefore, we express no opinion as to the lawfulness of the frisk independently of the stop. Cite as: 528 U. S. 119 (2000) Opinion of the Court behavior, and we cannot reasonably demand scientific cer- tainty from judges or law enforcement officers where none exists. Thus, the determination of reasonable suspicion must be based on commonsense judgments and inferences about human behavior. See United States v. Cortez, 449 U. S. 411, 418 (1981). We conclude Officer Nolan was jus- tified in suspecting that Wardlow was involved in criminal activity, and, therefore, in investigating further. Such a holding is entirely consistent with our decision in Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491 (1983), where we held that when an officer, without reasonable suspicion or probable cause, approaches an individual, the individual has a right to ignore the police and go about his business. Id., at 498. And any "refusal to cooperate, without more, does not fur- nish the minimal level of objective justification needed for a detention or seizure." Florida v. Bostick, 501 U. S. 429, 437 (1991). But unprovoked flight is simply not a mere refusal to cooperate. Flight, by its very nature, is not "going about one's business"; in fact, it is just the opposite. Allowing of- ficers confronted with such flight to stop the fugitive and investigate further is quite consistent with the individual's right to go about his business or to stay put and remain silent in the face of police questioning. Respondent and amici also argue that there are innocent reasons for flight from police and that, therefore, flight is not necessarily indicative of ongoing criminal activity. This fact is undoubtedly true, but does not establish a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Even in Terry, the conduct justifying the stop was ambiguous and susceptible of an innocent expla- nation. The officer observed two individuals pacing back and forth in front of a store, peering into the window and periodically conferring. 392 U. S., at 5-6. All of this con- duct was by itself lawful, but it also suggested that the indi- viduals were casing the store for a planned robbery. Terry recognized that the officers could detain the individuals to resolve the ambiguity. Id., at 30. ILLINOIS v. WARDLOW Opinion of STEVENS, J. Accordingly, we recognized only a "narrowly drawn au- thority" that is "limited to that which is necessary for the discovery of weapons." Id., at 27, 26. An officer conduct- ing an investigatory stop, we further explained, must articu- late "a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity." United States v. Cortez, 449 U. S. 411, 417-418 (1981). That deter- mination, we admonished, "becomes meaningful only when it is assured that at some point the conduct of those charged with enforcing the laws can be subjected to the more de- tached, neutral scrutiny of a judge who must evaluate the reasonableness of a particular search or seizure in light of the particular circumstances." Terry, 392 U. S., at 21. In undertaking that neutral scrutiny "based on all of the cir- cumstances," a court relies on "certain commonsense conclu- sions about human behavior." Cortez, 449 U. S., at 418; see also ante, at 125. "[Tlhe relevant inquiry" concerning the inferences and conclusions a court draws "is not whether particular conduct is 'innocent' or 'guilty,' but the degree of suspicion that attaches to particular types of noncriminal acts." Sokolow, 490 U. S., at 10. The question in this case concerns "the degree of suspicion that attaches to" a person's flight-or, more precisely, what "commonsense conclusions" can be drawn respecting the mo- tives behind that flight. A pedestrian may break into a run for a variety of reasons-to catch up with a friend a block or two away, to seek shelter from an impending storm, to arrive at a bus stop before the bus leaves, to get home in time for ment engendered by that intrusion is aggravated, not mitigated, if the officer's entire justification for the stop is the belief that the individual is simply trying to avoid contact with the police or move from one place to another-as he or she has a right to do (and do rapidly). See Chicago v. Morales, 527 U. S. 41, 53 (1999) (plurality opinion) ("We have expressly identified this 'right to remove from one place to another according to inclination' as 'an attribute of personal liberty' protected by the Constitu- tion" (citation omitted)); Florida v. Bostick, 501 U. S. 429, 437 (1991); Flor- ida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491, 497-498 (1983) (plurality opinion); Terry, 392 U. S., at 32-33 (Harlan, J., concurring); see also ante, at 125. Cite as: 528 U. S. 119 (2000) Opinion of STEVENS, J. dinner, to resume jogging after a pause for rest, to avoid contact with a bore or a bully, or simply to answer the call of nature-any of which might coincide with the arrival of an officer in the vicinity. A pedestrian might also run be- cause he or she has just sighted one or more police officers. In the latter instance, the State properly points out "that the fleeing person may be, inter alia, (1) an escapee from jail; (2) wanted on a warrant; (3) in possession of contraband, (i. e. drugs, weapons, stolen goods, etc.); or (4) someone who has just committed another type of crime." Brief for Peti- tioner 9, n. 4.2 In short, there are unquestionably circum- stances in which a person's flight is suspicious, and undeni- ably instances in which a person runs for entirely innocent reasons.3 Given the diversity and frequency of possible motivations for flight, it would be profoundly unwise to endorse either per se rule. The inference we can reasonably draw about the motivation for a person's flight, rather, will depend on a number of different circumstances. Factors such as the time of day, the number of people in the area, the character of the neighborhood, whether the officer was in uniform, the way the runner was dressed, the direction and speed of the 2 If the fleeing person exercises his or her right to remain silent after being stopped, only in the third of the State's four hypothetical categories is the stop likely to lead to probable cause to make an arrest. And even in the third category, flight does not necessarily indicate that the officer is "dealing with an armed and dangerous individual." Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 27 (1968). 1 Compare, e. g., Proverbs 28:1 ("The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are as bold as a lion") with Proverbs 22:3 ("A shrewd man sees trouble coming and lies low; the simple walk into it and pay the penalty"). I have rejected reliance on the former proverb in the past, because its "ivory-towered analysis of the real world" fails to account for the ex- periences of many citizens of this country, particularly those who are minorities. See California v. Hodari D., 499 U. S. 621, 630, n. 4 (1991) (STEVENS, J., dissenting). That this pithy expression fails to capture the total reality of our world, however, does not mean it is inaccurate in all instances. ILLINOIS v. WARDLOW Opinion of STEVENS, J. flight, and whether the person's behavior was otherwise un- usual might be relevant in specific cases. This number of variables is surely sufficient to preclude either a bright-line rule that always justifies, or that never justifies, an investi- gative stop based on the sole fact that flight began after a police officer appeared nearby.4 Still, Illinois presses for a per se rule regarding "unpro- voked flight upon seeing a clearly identifiable police officer." Id., at 7. The phrase "upon seeing," as used by Illinois, ap- parently assumes that the flight is motivated by the presence of the police officer.5 Illinois contends that unprovoked flight is "an extreme reaction," id., at 8, because innocent people simply do not "flee at the mere sight of the police," id., at 24. To be sure, Illinois concedes, an innocent per- son-even one distrustful of the police-might "avoid eye contact or even sneer at the sight of an officer," and that 4 Of course, Terry itself recognized that sometimes behavior giving rise to reasonable suspicion is entirely innocent, but it accepted the risk that officers may stop innocent people. 392 U. S., at 30. And as the Court correctly observes, it is "undoubtedly true" that innocent explanations for flight exist, but they do not "establish a violation of the Fourth Amend- ment." Ante, at 125. It is equally true, however, that the innocent ex- planations make the single act of flight sufficiently ambiguous to preclude the adoption of a per se rule. In Terry, furthermore, reasonable suspicion was supported by a concate- nation of acts, each innocent when viewed in isolation, that when consid- ered collectively amounted to extremely suspicious behavior. See 392 U. S., at 5-7, 22-23. Flight alone, however, is not at all like a "series of acts, each of them perhaps innocent in itself, but which taken together warran[t] further investigation." Id., at 22. Nor is flight similar to evi- dence which in the aggregate provides "fact on fact and clue on clue afford- [ing] a basis for the deductions and inferences," supporting reasonable suspicion. United States v. Cortez, 449 U. S. 411, 419 (1981). 5 Nowhere in Illinois' briefs does it specify what it means by "unpro- voked." At oral argument, Illinois explained that if officers precipitate a flight by threats of violence, that flight is "provoked." But if police offi- cers in a patrol car-with lights flashing and siren sounding-descend upon an individual for the sole purpose of seeing if he or she will run, the ensuing flight is "unprovoked." Tr. of Oral Arg. 17-18, 20. Cite as: 528 U. S. 119 (2000) Opinion of STEVENS, J. unprovoked flight is neither "aberrant" nor "abnormal." Moreover, these concerns and fears are known to the police officers themselves,9 and are validated by law enforcement investigations into their own practices. 10 Accordingly, the 8 See, e.g., Kotlowitz, Hidden Casualties: Drug War's Emphasis on Law Enforcement Takes a Toll on Police, Wall Street Journal, Jan. 11, 1991, p. A2, col. 1 ("Black leaders complained that innocent people were picked up in the drug sweeps .... Some teen-agers were so scared of the task force they ran even if they weren't selling drugs"). Many stops never lead to an arrest, which further exacerbates the per- ceptions of discrimination felt by racial minorities and people living in high crime areas. See Goldberg, The Color of Suspicion, N. Y. Times Magazine, June 20, 1999, p. 85 (reporting that in 2-year period, New York City Police Department Street Crimes Unit made 45,000 stops, only 9,500, or 20%, of which resulted in arrest); Casinir, supra n. 7 (reporting that in 1997, New York City's Street Crimes Unit conducted 27,061 stop-and- frisks, only 4,647 of which, 17%, resulted in arrest). Even if these data were race neutral, they would still indicate that society as a whole is pay- ing a significant cost in infringement on liberty by these virtually random stops. See also n. 1, supra. 9 The Chief of the Washington, D. C., Metropolitan Police Department, for example, confirmed that "sizeable percentages of Americans today- especially Americans of color-still view policing in the United States to be discriminatory, if not by policy and definition, certainly in its day-to-day application." P. Verniero, Attorney General of New Jersey, Interim Re- port of the State Police Review Team Regarding Allegations of Racial Profiling 46 (Apr. 20, 1999) (hereinafter Interim Report). And a recent survey of 650 Los Angeles Police Department officers found that 25% felt that "'racial bias (prejudice) on the part of officers toward minority citi- zens currently exists and contributes to a negative interaction between police and the community."' Report of the Independent Comm'n on the Los Angeles Police Department 69 (1991); see also 5 United States Comm'n on Civil Rights, Racial and Ethnic Tensions in American Commu- nities: Poverty, Inequality and Discrimination, The Los Angeles Report 26 (June 1999). 10 New Jersey's Attorney General, in a recent investigation into allega- tions of racial profiling on the New Jersey Turnpike, concluded that "mi- nority motorists have been treated differently [by New Jersey State Troopers] than non-minority motorists during the course of traffic stops on the New Jersey Turnpike." "[T]he problem of disparate treatment is real-not imagined," declared the Attorney General. Not surprisingly, ILLINOIS v. WARDLOW Opinion of STEVENS, J. evidence supporting the reasonableness of these beliefs is too pervasive to be dismissed as random or rare, and too persua- sive to be disparaged as inconclusive or insufficient. In the report concluded that this disparate treatment "engender[s] feelings of fear, resentment, hostility, and mistrust by minority citizens." See In- terim Report 4, 7. Recently, the United States Department of Justice, citing this very evidence, announced that it would appoint an outside moni- tor to oversee the actions of the New Jersey State Police and ensure that it enacts policy changes advocated by the Interim Report, and keeps rec- ords on racial statistics and traffic stops. See Kocieniewski, U. S. Will Monitor New Jersey Police on Race Profiling, N. Y. Times, Dec. 23, 1999, p. Al, col. 6. Likewise, the Massachusetts Attorney General investigated similar alle- gations of egregious police conduct toward minorities. The report stated: "We conclude that Boston police officers engaged in improper, and uncon- stitutional, conduct in the 1989-90 period with respect to stops and searches of minority individuals .... Although we cannot say with preci- sion how widespread this illegal conduct was, we believe that it was suffi- ciently common to justify changes in certain Department practices. 'Perhaps the most disturbing evidence was that the scope of a number of Terry searches went far beyond anything authorized by that case and indeed, beyond anything that we believe would be acceptable under the federal and state constitutions even where probable cause existed to con- duct a full search incident to an arrest. Forcing young men to lower their trousers, or otherwise searching inside their underwear, on public streets or in public hallways, is so demeaning and invasive of fundamental pre- cepts of privacy that it can only be condemned in the strongest terms. The fact that not only the young men themselves, but independent wit- nesses complained of strip searches, should be deeply alarming to all mem- bers of this community." J. Shannon, Attorney General of Massachusetts, Report of the Attorney General's Civil Rights Division on Boston Police Department Practices 60-61 (Dec. 18, 1990). 11 Taking into account these and other innocent motivations for unpro- voked flight leads me to reject Illinois' requested per se rule in favor of adhering to a totality-of-the-circumstances test. This conclusion does not, as Illinois suggests, "establish a separate Terry analysis based on the indi- vidual characteristics of the person seized." Reply Brief for Petitioner 14. My rejection of a per se rule, of course, applies to members of all races. It is true, as Illinois points out, that Terry approved of the stop and frisk procedure notwithstanding "Itihe wholesale harassment by certain Cite as: 528 U. S. 119 (2000) Opinion of STEVENS, J. any event, just as we do not require "scientific certainty" for our commonsense conclusion that unprovoked flight can sometimes indicate suspicious motives, see ante, at 124-125, neither do we require scientific certainty to conclude that unprovoked flight can occur for other, innocent reasons.12 The probative force of the inferences to be drawn from flight is a function of the varied circumstances in which it occurs. Sometimes those inferences are entirely consistent with the presumption of innocence, sometimes they justify further investigation, and sometimes they justify an immedi- ate stop and search for weapons. These considerations have led us to avoid categorical rules concerning a person's flight and the presumptions to be drawn therefrom: "Few things . . . distinguish an enlightened system of judicature from a rude and barbarous one more than the manner in which they deal with evidence. The former weighs testimony, whilst the latter, conscious perhaps of its inability to do so or careless of the consequences of error, at times rejects whole portions en masse, and at others converts pieces of evidence into rules of law by investing with conclusive effect some whose probative force has been found to be in general considerable.... Our ancestors, observing that guilty persons usually fled from justice, adopted the hasty conclusion that it was only the guilty who did so ... so that under the old law, a man who fled to avoid being tried for felony forfeited elements of the police community, of which minority groups, particularly Negroes, frequently complain." 392 U. S., at 14. But in this passage, Terry simply held that such concerns would not preclude the use of the stop and frisk procedure altogether. See id., at 17, n. 14. Nowhere did Terry suggest that such concerns cannot inform a court's assessment of whether reasonable suspicion sufficient to justify a particular stop existed. As a general matter, local courts often have a keener and more in- formed sense of local police practices and events that may heighten these concerns at particular times or locations. Thus, a reviewing court may accord substantial deference to a local court's determination that fear of the police is especially acute in a specific location or at a particular time. ILLINOIS v. WARDLOW Opinion of STEVENS, J. opaque bag under his arm. Id., at 6, 9. After the car turned south and intercepted respondent as he "ran right towards us," Officer Nolan stopped him and conducted a "protective search," which revealed that the bag under re- spondent's arm contained a loaded handgun. Id., at 9-11. This terse testimony is most noticeable for what it fails to reveal. Though asked whether he was in a marked or unmarked car, Officer Nolan could not recall the answer. Id., at 4. He was not asked whether any of the other three cars in the caravan were marked, or whether any of the other seven officers were in uniform. Though he explained that the size of the caravan was because "[n]ormally in these dif- ferent areas there's an enormous amount of people, some- times lookouts, customers," Officer Nolan did not testify as to whether anyone besides Wardlow was nearby 4035 West Van Buren. Nor is it clear that that address was the in- tended destination of the caravan. As the Appellate Court of Illinois interpreted the record, "it appears that the officers were simply driving by, on their way to some unidentified location, when they noticed defendant standing at 4035 West Van Buren." 287 Ill. App. 3d 367, 370-371, 678 N. E. 2d 65, 67 (1997).16 Officer Nolan's testimony also does not reveal how fast the officers were driving. It does not indicate whether he saw respondent notice the other patrol cars. And it does not say whether the caravan, or any part of it, had already passed Wardiow by before he began to run. Indeed, the Appellate Court thought the record was even "too vague to support the inference that ...defendant's flight was related to his expectation of police focus on him." Id., at 371, 678 N. E. 2d, at 67. Presumably, respondent did not react to the first three cars, and we cannot even be sure that he recognized the occupants of the fourth as police offi- cers. The adverse inference is based entirely on the officer's 16 Of course, it would be a different case if the officers had credible infor- mation respecting that specific street address which reasonably led them to believe that criminal activity was afoot in that narrowly defined area. Cite as: 528 U. S. 119 (2000) Opinion of STEVENS, J. statement: "He looked in our direction and began fleeing." App. 9.17 No other factors sufficiently support a finding of reason- able suspicion. Though respondent was carrying a white, opaque bag under his arm, there is nothing at all suspicious about that. Certainly the time of day-shortly after noon- does not support Illinois' argument. Nor were the officers "responding to any call or report of suspicious activity in the area." 183 Ill. 2d, at 315, 701 N. E. 2d, at 488. Officer Nolan did testify that he expected to find "an enormous amount of people," including drug customers or lookouts, App. 8, and the Court points out that "[i]t was in this context that Officer Nolan decided to investigate Wardlow after ob- serving him flee," ante, at 124. This observation, in my view, lends insufficient weight to the reasonable suspicion analysis; indeed, in light of the absence of testimony that anyone else was nearby when respondent began to run, this observation points in the opposite direction. The State, along with the majority of the Court, relies as well on the assumption that this flight occurred in a high crime area. Even if that assumption is accurate, it is insuf- ficient because even in a high crime neighborhood unpro- voked flight does not invariably lead to reasonable suspicion. On the contrary, because many factors providing innocent motivations for unprovoked flight are concentrated in high crime areas, the character of the neighborhood arguably makes an inference of guilt less appropriate, rather than more so. Like unprovoked flight itself, presence in a high crime neighborhood is a fact too generic and susceptible to innocent explanation to satisfy the reasonable suspicion in- quiry. See Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47, 52 (1979); see also n. 15, supra. 17 Officer Nolan also testified that respondent "Was looking at us," App. 5 (emphasis added), though this minor clarification hardly seems sufficient to support the adverse inference. 140 ILLINOIS v. WARDLOW Opinion of STEVENS, J. It is the State's burden to articulate facts sufficient to sup- port reasonable suspicion. Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S., at 52; see also Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491, 500 (1983) (plurality opinion). In my judgment, Illinois has failed to discharge that burden. I am not persuaded that the mere fact that someone standing on a sidewalk looked in the direction of a passing car before starting to run is sufficient to justify a forcible stop and frisk. I therefore respectfully dissent from the Court's judgment to reverse the court below.