A lawsuit against a Waterbury police officer can move forward following a recent ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals Second Circuit. Defendant Nicholas Andrzejewski had appealed to the court over a lower court ruling denying him qualified immunity over a traffic stop where he allegedly unlawfully detained Basel Soukaneh and conducted a warrantless search of his car.
On November 12, 2018, Soukaneh stopped on the shoulder of a Waterbury street to fix the GPS on his phone, which had frozen. He left the engine running. Andrzejewski soon approached the car, knocked on the driver’s window and demanded Soukaneh’s driver’s license. According to the ruling, though it was night and the area was dark, the light inside the vehicle was on, so Soukaneh’s actions were visible.
Soukaneh provided both his driver’s license and his valid firearms permit, also informing Andrzejewski that he was in lawful possession of a pistol, which was in the driver’s side door compartment.
Andrzejewski then ordered Soukaneh to exit the vehicle. According to the ruling, Soukaneh claims Andrzejewski violently ” dragged him from the car, “pushed him to the ground, yelled and screamed at him, handcuffed him, and pat-searched his person, recovering neither a weapon nor contraband.” Soukaneh also says Andrzejewski then shoved him face-down into the rear of the police cruiser, where he remained until another officer arrived and helped him sit up. He then said he witnessed Andrzejewski search the interior of the car, as well as the trunk.
Soukaneh was allegedly handcuffed and detained for an initial half hour while other officers arrived at the scene.
According to the ruling, “At one point, Andrzejewski began writing on his onboard computer and turned to a fellow officer who had arrived at the scene and asked, “What should I write him up for?” The other officer laughed and the sergeant, who had also since arrived, told Andrzejewski what to write”
Soukaneh subsequently filed a complaint in U.S. District Court alleging that the detention violated his right to be free from unreasonable and warrantless detention and from warrantless and unreasonable search and seizure.
The district court partially granted a motion for summary judgment from Andrzejewski, ruling that he had a basis for stopping Soukaneh because he was stopped at night in “an area known for drugs and prostitution.” They also found it reasonable for Andrzejewski to believe Soukaneh was committing a traffic violation, giving him reasonable suspicion to check his driver’s license and requiring him to step out of the car.
However, the court found Andrzejewski did not have probable cause to handcuff and detain Soukaneh or to search his car. They stated that a reasonable officer would not believe Soukaneh was committing a crime or posed a threat by disclosing a firearm and permit.
Andrzejewski appealed the lower court’s decision, but the appeals court was not persuaded by his arguments and denied his motion for summary judgment.
“The desire to confirm the legitimacy of the facially valid firearms permit that Soukaneh presented did not–with nothing more–provide Andrzejewski with probable cause for the half-hour or longer handcuffed detention that occurred. It is uncontested that Soukaneh presented Andrzejewski with a gun license, the legitimacy of which Andrzejewski himself admits he had no reason to question.” the court wrote.
They also were not persuaded by Andrzejewski’s claim that the presence of the gun created probable cause to search Soukaneh’s car.
“Andrzejewski argues that once he retrieved the gun identified by Soukaneh in the driver’s side door compartment, he had the requisite probable cause to search the trunk for contraband. But the presence or retrieval of the lawful firearm could not, and did not, provide probable cause to search for contraband in the trunk, absent indicators of criminal activity. Andrzejewski attempts to justify his actions by relying on cases in which the discovery of contraband (e.g., the discovery of drugs) provided a foundation for probable cause for a warrantless search under the automobile exception. But a lawfully owned gun is not per se contraband. Andrzejewksi provides no other basis for suspicion that the trunk contained illegal weapons, or any evidence to suggest a crime was afoot to justify his separate intrusion into the trunk.” the court wrote.
The court also rejected Andrzejewski’s qualified immunity claim, arguing that an “officer seeking to benefit from qualified immunity must be able to articulate why the privacy intrusion went only as far as permissible and necessary.” But the court found that Andrzejewski provided “no such explanation.”
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