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STATE v. PRATER5/22/1998
" On appeal, Prater argues that this ruling is correct and that knowledge possessed by dispatchers, as opposed to officers, can never be imputed to the officers who stop or seize. However, LaFave also cites some cases that do involve broadcasts by dispatchers, and it appears from them that the majority rule is that information known by the dispatchers and on which the broadcast dispatch is based will indeed be considered in determining whether the dispatch and, therefore, the stop is supported by reasonable suspicion. See, e.g., United States v. Cutchin, 956 F.2d 1216, 1217-18 (D.C. Cir. 1992); Olson v. Comm'r of Pub. Safety, 371 N.W.2d 552, 555-56 (Minn. 1985); State v. Franklin, 841 S.W.2d 639, 643 (Mo. 1992) (en banc).
We are guided by an Alaska Supreme Court case that appears to have at least implicitly applied this majority rule. In Mattern v. State, 500 P.2d 228 (Alaska 1972), a citizen made two telephone calls in the middle of the night to the police: the first stating that someone was in the apartment below hers and the occupant of the apartment was away and the second stating that a white Dodge van with its lights turned off was
driving away. Id. at 229. The "police dispatcher" broadcast two radio bulletins, the first stating that a burglary was in progress on Second Avenue and the second stating that a white Dodge van was leaving the area with its lights off. Id. Based on the dispatches, two officers stopped the van and eventually arrested the occupants. Id. at 229-30. The supreme court held that the seizure of evidence was not the fruit of an "illegal detention," in part because the details of the phone calls that had not been broadcast to the police officers contributed to "probable cause to arrest":
The police dispatcher told the arresting officers that a burglary was in progress and then reported that the burglar was leaving the scene in a white Dodge van without lights. Information relayed to a police officer via the police radio may provide probable cause to arrest. However, when one officer furnishes evidence to another officer which leads to an arrest, the state must prove the reasonable basis of the former officer's information. The radio dispatch was based upon Mrs. Mer ell's call to the police that she heard noises in her friend's empty apartment below. She also reported an unfamiliar vehicle leaving the area without lights.
In a large city Mrs. Merrell's report to the police and Mattern's furtive manner in leaving the scene would not perhaps be particularly evocative of a belief that a burglary had been committed. In a large urban area neighbors are often anonymous. Ketchikan, however, is a relatively small community where people are likely to know their neighbors and are interested and aware of their movements. An unfamiliar car in a larger city might not arouse suspicion but it will be noticed in a smaller community. Thus we feel that Mrs. Merrell's report to the police that someone was illegally in her neighbor's empty apartment and the subsequent strange behavior of the defendant in driving his car away from this apartment in the middle of the night, without benefit of headlights and passing by his own street, although he told the police he was going home, are sufficient in this case to give the police probable cause to believe that Mattern had committed a burglary in Carol Krebs' apartment.
Id. at 232-33 (footnotes omitted).
We conclude that Judge Cutler erred by ruling that a dispatcher's knowledge can never be considered in evaluating whether an investigative stop is justified unless the dispatcher specifically communicates that knowledge to the stopping police officer. Instead, we apply the rule set out by the Unit
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