By Anthony Bandiero, attorney and senior legal instructor for Blue to Gold Law Enforcement Training.
A question from an officer in Kansas. His dispatch is handled at the county level, and when an erratic driver tip comes in, dispatch broadcasts it countywide but ends the broadcast by telling officers to make their own case at the vehicle. That is county policy, not his agency’s.
Can you stop a car on a 911 tip alone?
Hello everyone, it’s Anthony Bandiero here, attorney and senior legal instructor for Blue to Gold Law Enforcement Training, bringing the roadside chat from beautiful Castle Rock, Colorado.
This question comes from an officer in Kansas, and he says, look, I work for a municipality where dispatch is handled at the county level. When a tip about an erratic driver is called in, dispatch will broadcast the tip information throughout the entire county, but will end the broadcast with the statement to make our own case at the vehicle is located. Note, this is county policy, not my agency policy. I know that case law states that anonymous tips provide a sufficient basis on which to make a traffic stop, that case is Navarette versus California. However, dispatch’s policy is to instruct all LEOs to develop their own reasonable suspicion and so forth to make the stop. I have at various times ignored this policy with my agency’s support on the basis of the collective knowledge doctrine.
Okay, so does the collective knowledge doctrine apply here? All right, let’s walk through this step by step, shall we?
Is a 911 caller really an anonymous tipster?
Number one, anonymous tips. So when a person calls up 911 and provides information, can you use that information to develop your reasonable suspicion? And the answer is yes. And here’s why.
In 2024 and beyond, those tips are not truly anonymous. Almost never can they be anonymous. Sure, if a person picks up a phone and calls you from a lobby phone in a lobby of a hotel and they’re like, I’m not telling you who I am, there’s drug activity going on, there’s this activity going on, that’s a truly anonymous tip, and you’re going to need corroboration before you can act on that tip. You can always make a consensual encounter, but before you make an actual stop you’re going to need corroboration.
However, when people call in drunk drivers and erratic drivers and so forth, are they truly anonymous? And according to the Supreme Court in Navarette, the answer is no.
Why does the Supreme Court presume a 911 caller is reliable?
Instead, the way that the Supreme Court looks at those cases, it’s really, I like to say, like a two part analysis.
Number one, when people call 911 dispatch on their cell phone, for example, can we presume that they’re reliable? Can we actually give them a little bit of our trust? And the answer is yes. And you know why? Because the law states that a person who calls 911, who can be identified through call tracing and so forth, knows that there’s consequences for lying, and therefore they’re presumptively reliable. And they’re calling number one to explain, or to share with you, that they see an erratic driver. So that’s the reliability. So they’re not truly an anonymous tip, even though we oftentimes call these people RPs when they don’t want to give their information and so forth.
The next thing is, how do they know what they know? Most of these drivers are telling you their observations, that they’re seeing it. Hey, this guy’s all over the road, he almost hit me, he almost hit other cars, he’s brake checking, all this kind of stuff. And the point is, that’s how they know what they know.
What if you genuinely do not know who called?
Now if you look on your MDT and you have this caller and you have no idea who it is, you don’t think dispatch knows who this person is, that’s an anonymous tip, and you cannot stop that person without some independent corroboration, like some inside information.
Say for example, an anonymous tip comes in, hey, this guy, his name is TJ, he is super drunk, just left the bar in his Nissan Altima, license plate 1 2 3 4 5 6. And the guy is truly anonymous, you do not know who just made this phone call. And then you get behind the Nissan Altima, you do not see any independent violations, those make the cases easy, but you run the tag 1 2 3 4 5 6 and it comes back to a registered owner of Tom Jones. That is corroboration. Who would have known that that car was registered to a guy named TJ, which is probably Tom Jones.
Do you even need collective knowledge if dispatch told you everything?
The next thing I want you to know is the collective knowledge doctrine. Well, look, if the dispatcher is giving you all the facts needed for reasonable suspicion, all over the road, almost hit somebody and so forth, and the caller is identified, then you don’t need the collective knowledge doctrine. Because the collective knowledge doctrine implies that you need something to come into the case that you don’t already know.
In other words, is the dispatcher reliable? Do you think that the dispatcher is lying about this 911 call? Of course not. So the way I look at it, it’s not really the collective knowledge doctrine as much as it’s just good old fashioned reliable information. I see that the dispatch said that this person’s all over the road, they have their phone number, now you have facts and circumstances that lead you to believe that criminal activity is afoot.
Is the case law split on dispatchers who are not commissioned?
I do want to share with you though some information about collective knowledge. Again, collective knowledge is when everybody involved in the case, in this issue, they’re presumed to know everything that the other person knows. Let me read you some case law from my notes here.
First of all, it does say the case law is split upon whether the fellow officer rule or collective knowledge applies to dispatchers who are not commissioned officers. Let’s compare some cases.
United States versus Fernandez-Castillo, it’s a Ninth Circuit case from 2003, and it basically says a dispatcher’s knowledge that was not communicated, remember that’s what collective knowledge is, not communicated to the stopping officer, is properly considered as part of the reasonable suspicion analysis.
Compare United States versus Colon, Second Circuit 2001. A dispatcher’s knowledge which was not communicated to the officer in the field can only be considered in the reasonable suspicion analysis if the dispatcher had sufficient training and ability to make the determination that there was probable cause to support the defendant’s arrest. So it seems to me that the Second Circuit wants something more than just being a dispatcher, something more than being part of that investigation. They want training.
Now, Washington law implies at least that dispatchers will be treated as fellow officers with respect to the accuracy of their dissemination of the information they received. That is a Washington appellate case from 1994. And what they say is, to require an officer under these circumstances to stop and undertake an in-depth analysis of the reliability of the information received by the police dispatcher would greatly impede the officer’s discharge of duty and would greatly increase the threat to the public safety. Under such circumstances officers should be able to rely on the reliability, I talked about this, of information disseminated by police dispatch, and when his or her observations corroborate information to make a reasonable suspicion stop.
Now, I told you about corroboration. That’s already been addressed in a Supreme Court case, in Navarette. This Washington case is 1994. We know that corroboration is not required on 911 calls. That’s Navarette, and that is the more recent case.
Can county policy override the Fourth Amendment?
So there’s your answer. At the end of the day, if this person can be identified, and dispatch is communicating their information to you, hey, all over the road and so forth, you don’t need collective knowledge. You can act on it with just the tip.
And the fact that the dispatcher is saying find your own reasons and so forth, I got to tell you, that’s probably just them not wanting to be called to court. They don’t want to be taken off duty to go show up to court. I understand. But as far as the law goes, that’s what the law is. You can use the information because it’s reliable.
Collective knowledge doctrine is also trying to include things that were not communicated. That seems to be a split issue, but I’ll tell you the better rule seems to be that collective knowledge does apply to police dispatchers.
And finally, policy does not supersede constitutional law. So though the county has a policy, that is not going to be relevant in a Fourth Amendment analysis on the facts here.
The short version
- A person who calls 911 and can be identified through call tracing knows there are consequences for lying, and is therefore presumptively reliable.
- Erratic driver and drunk driver calls are almost never truly anonymous. That is Navarette.
- A truly anonymous tip, the hotel lobby phone, still needs corroboration before a stop. You can always make a consensual encounter.
- Ask how they know what they know. Most callers are giving you their own observations.
- If dispatch already gave you every fact you need, you don’t need the collective knowledge doctrine at all. It’s just reliable information.
- The case law is split on whether collective knowledge reaches dispatchers who are not commissioned officers. The Ninth Circuit says yes, the Second Circuit wants training.
- The better rule seems to be that collective knowledge does apply to police dispatchers.
- Dispatch telling you to find your own reasons is probably about not getting subpoenaed, not about the law.
- Policy does not supersede constitutional law.
I hope you got something out of this. If you did, if you think that this video is helping you get it right every single time, you know what to do. Hit the like button, subscribe to the channel, share with your friends.
Until next time, my friends, you stay safe.
Related from Blue to Gold
- Reasonable Suspicion Vs Probable Cause
- Can You Detain Someone Based on Call They Have a Gun?
- Frisking a Student Based on an Anonymous Tip
This article is an edited transcript of Roadside Chat Ep #636. It is legal training, not legal advice. Check your state law and your agency policy, because both can be more restrictive than the Fourth Amendment.
