In the Matter of the Welfare of: C.T.B

Summary

The court held that police lacked reasonable, articulable suspicion to pat-frisk C.T.B. because his proximity to an armed-crime suspect, combined with an officer's general knowledge that weapons may be passed among people, did not provide an individualized basis for the search. The court also held that the lower courts clearly erred by relying on unsupported findings that C.T.B. was conversing or huddled with the suspect and by inferring that the suspect's firearm had not been recovered. The denial of suppression was therefore reversed and the matter was remanded.