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Police: U-turn results in gun arrest
By adamg on Wed, 12/24/2014 - 9:23am
Boston Police report arresting a pair of alleged gun-toters after police stopped their car for making a U-turn on Hyde Park Avenue Monday afternoon.
According to police, the officers who watched the bad traffic move around 2 p.m. outside 750 Hyde Park Ave. stopped the car for a chat:
As officers approached the car, they were unable to see inside the vehicle due to the heavy tint. As a result, officers directed the occupants to roll down all of the windows. With the windows down, officers could see two individuals inside the car. While speaking to the operator of the car, officers noted and observed the operator’s hand to be trembling. Furthermore, officers noted that the passenger of the vehicle also appeared to be overly nervous due to trembling hands and a quivering of his voice. While looking inside of the car, officers observed in plain view a black firearm (described as a .38 caliber revolver) on the side of the front passenger's seat. Both suspects were quickly removed from the vehicle and placed in handcuffs.
Richard Earl, 22, of Mattapan, was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of a loaded firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition, as well as a variety of traffic infringements, including having excessively tinted windows. His companion, a 17-year-old, was also charge with the gun and ammunition violations.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
Not to defend these guys
How does one take an illegal U-turn on this stretch of road? There is a median, and the median has a break, and the break (per google street view) doesn't have a sign banning U-turns. Why even have the break? The break is there to let people turn around, and of course to access the auto repair places.
People living on the odd numbered side of Hyde Park Ave need a way to get to north via a car, and the even numbered residents need a way to get to Cleary Square and beyond. Just saying.
Did they go over the median?
That may be why it was illegal - if they used an SUV to vault the median.
Just speculating as I have seen this done before elsewhere.
That would be a good one
I would doubt, since the address given is the only place for a while where there is no median.
Of course, this is Boston.
you can't make a U-turn over a double yellow line
....and this is why our driver education sucks.
U-turns are prohibited in most of the city.
People make U-turns on that road all the time...
Is that really a traffic offense? No signage anywhere along that road cautioning against it, or lines for that matter.
But gun in plain sight, knowing they have been pulled over? That is certainly an unforced error...
Only from the left lane
You're only supposed to make a U-turn from the leftmost lane. These guys probably swung across the median from the right lane, enough to give the cops pretext to stop them.
There you go
Now if they could only start cracking down on two of my pet peeves-
-people who start lefts by veering right (and vice versa)
-people who take left turns from Corinth Street by getting in the right lane. Seriously, there will be a line of 6 cars in the right lane, 5 if them taking lefts, while 2 cars are in the actual proper lane. It gets annoying when you are heading for Poplar Street. Some day I'm going to go to Poplar Street via the left lane. What is a driver in the other lane going to say? That I am in the wrong lane for a right jog?
Yup
I live on Hyde Park Ave and crazy u-turns are a huge pet peeve. People often do them from parking spots to the right of traffic, with oncoming traffic in both directions, and then don't clear the turn because of a vehicle parked on the other side...requiring a 3 pt turn during rush hour. Although u-turns might not be prohibited in an area, I think you can always be pulled over for driving stupidly/dangerously. (Granted, that rarely happens!)
Plenty of Curb Cuts
N/T.
Illegal U-Turn
Any U-turn that causes oncoming traffic to slow is illegal. No signage or markings required.
Random question
Is that sort of window tint legal in MA? I'm seeing it more and more often (in the suburbs as well as in the city). I thought the front windows couldn't be tinted past a certain level, for safety reasons in low light conditions alone.
You're right
MA GL Chapter 90 Section 9D
IANAL, but I take this to mean that the cop saying "I couldn't see the people inside" means it's too dark.
It's legal.
If it's factory, it's legal. If it was "with any of the following affixed thereto:" put on by a people, it's not legal.
Baby sun screens are not legal.
Stick on polymer is not legal.
My minivan's factory tint is legal. Can't see through it, but not my problem. No, really.
But then again, if I ever get pulled over, I would turn on the dome light, put my hands at the 11-1 position on the wheel, and wait it out.
Oh, the pistol was near the front seat, not the back.
AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL.
UTURN
SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT MOTION TO SUPPRESS.
Why?
Granted, people do them all the time, but they're still illegal, so a cop who happens to see one is allowed to pull you over to write a ticket. You might have more luck with the order to roll down the windows because the tint is too dark - how did the officer measure the darkness of the tint? But even that might be difficult because this was in the middle of the afternoon, not at night. Or am I missing something?
Recent court decisions would
Recent court decisions would seem to indicate theres a chance that neither the u-turn or the window tint may be enough to avoid suppression of evidence, but then again if the gun was in plain sight, I don't know, maybe it is enough if there was no search.
That's Roslindale btw, turns
That's Roslindale btw, turns into HP around Nstar
Hopefully they get a good lawyer
Unless there was a sign prohibiting U-turns, the U-turn was legal and no grounds for a stop. I can't find an exact citation to a Mass. General Law covering this, but there is some discussion about the MA Driver's Manual here that explains this.
This is of course logical. Why would the State put up "No U-turn" signs in some places if they're also illegal everywhere else? (Compare "No left turn" signs or "No turn on red" signs; obviously these signs are put up because these maneuvers are legal elsewhere.)
As to the window tint charge, if the cop doesn't measure the tint specifically, the charge probably doesn't meet all the elements of the offense, and the charge would be dismissed. (For example, in New Hampshire, in general it's 35% light transmittance. RSA 266:58-a. I don't know the Mass. law.) Compare noise ordinances; in many places they define a specific decibel level at a specific distance, and if the complaint doesn't include the measurement, you can get it dismissed as not meeting the elements of the offense.
But the specifics of the tint claim wouldn't affect the legality of the cop's demand to lower the windows, which probably falls under some vague "officer safety" standard defined in case law and unrelated to the actual tint law. With the windows rolled down, the gun being in plain sight was therefore legal for them to act upon—but again, only if the traffic stop was initially legal.
That the cop pointed out in his report that the suspects' hands were shaking could work against their case. There is a recent case out of U.S. District Court in N.H. where a cop tried to use this as the crux of the argument why he continued a traffic stop past its original purpose (a lane violation), and the Court threw out subsequently discovered drug evidence as a result of this. The Court recognized that perfectly innocent people can be nervous during a police stop and thus such nervousness cannot be used as suspicion or probable cause for a search for something beyond the purpose of the initial traffic stop. This ruling isn't binding on Mass., but it could be referred to by a decent lawyer and courts sometimes look to nearby jurisdictions for guidance where they have no case law of their own on a specific topic yet, and such a ruling could eventually come out of the U.S. 1st Circuit court (the next level up in the federal court hierarchy), which would be binding on Mass..
On the U-turn issue alone, hopefully these guys get a good lawyer who gets the whole thing suppressed. And yes I do mean hopefully; I'm from New Hampshire where the right to keep and bear arms is still respected—we only have a $10 shall-issue carry permit (RSA 159:6), nothing like Mass.' crazy gun restrictions—and I would be more than happy to see an attempt to enforce those gun laws fall flat on a technicality.
Please stay in New Hampshire and knock yourself out
As a Boston resident, I appreciate what our local police do to keep illegal weapons off the streets.
Since you seem to have some facility for looking up laws and regulations, you might want to check out recent Supreme Judicial Court rulings on gun ownership (and there have been several over the past couple of years). Based on those rulings, you'll quickly see the odds of our state's gun regulations being tossed out approximate that of a snowball in hell - and yes, the court is very cognizant of the Washington, DC case and goes to great lengths to explain its rulings in the context of that.
As for the U-turn and shaky hands stuff, you might be right. But courts in Massachusetts at least also tend to look at the totality of an incident. Shaky hands by themselves may not be sufficient cause for action, but it raises police suspicion, which, when coupled with tinted glass coupled with a possibly illegal U-turn (the Registry says, yes, U-turns are legal "as long as your path is clear and it is safe to do so," but one could argue a U-turn on a busy thoroughfare like Hyde Park Avenue is inherently unsafe) could add up to enough for the stop, gun seizure and arrests to hold up.
Plus, as you mention, the gun itself was in plain sight on the back seat, at least according to the police press release.That raises an immediate officer-safety issue, and if a court rules the initial stop was legal, they're going to rule the seizure legal, as well (barring any other issues that we don't know about since the police obviously aren't going to release anything that might hurt their case in a press release).
Adam,
Adam,
As you are implying about NH being a nutty, constructive(ish) state, maybe you should resize a "conservative(ish)" person would want these gang bangers thrown in jail. Please stop being a grumpy ingnorant asshole. Thanks.
Meldrim Thomson has been dead a long time now
Who says NH is a conservative state? Have you looked at its statewide elected officials recently?
You do realize that those of us who live in Boston want gangbangers convicted and put in jail as well, right? And that calling for every single citizen to pack heat is not the only way to do that? And possibly not a way to do that at all? And that the original commenter was hoping the evidence in this case would be tossed, which would put two people (one a minor) driving around with a loaded gun right back on the street?
Have a happy new year.
I agree they should be thrown
I agree they should be thrown in jail and disagree that every citizen needs a gun. Just seems like u have been on mission lately
Your hopes are not our hopes
I hope that nothing of the sort transpires. I do not approve of random morons driving around with loaded firearms in their laps. That you hope for these particular morons to get away with it says to me that you're not on board with our social compact. So yes, please stay in NH.
New Hampshire
Where a drugged out women who has never had a license is pulled over for travelling more than twice the speed limit in a car that she doesn't own, and is allowed to ride home with a known drug dealer so that she can reload, get behind the wheel, and murder/maim four people the next morning.
No thanks.
ch. 89/8 and ch. 90/9d
This is the unposted U-turn statute which is used when people take dangerous turns.
If you took a U-turn and it is posted "no U-turn" that would be Ch. 89 s.9, which also includes red lights, stop signs, etc.
The tint is 35% but was only really an issue because the officers couldn't see inside. That really shouldn't be a factor.
So basically
The driver was an idiot.
Or, to put it another way, if they took the u turn into oncoming traffic, it's a violation.
I'm about to take junior out on a stroller run in the area. I'm going to be giving the cut careful attention (visually, I stay on the odd numbers for that segment of the run.)
EDIT- so I'm back from the run. I almost forgot about my pledge until I heard the screech of car tires behind me (I think a pedestrian crossing when they shouldn't have). I get to the break when I see an SUV in the right lane coming at me with her left turn signal on. Sure enough, she almost side swiped a BMW in the left lane. And yes, she did a U-turn. Even went my me down the road and pulled over. Then she backed up. In short, they should probably station cops by here. They'd be writing a lot of tickets. Come to think of it, I got stopped for speeding there once.
UTURN
It also sounds like "Plain View McCue"is back.
Bullshit tangents
I can't believe some of the bullshit tangent people go on here. Dissecting the limited facts and drawing conclusions from their arm chairs...
There is an epidemic of gun violence in this city with stabbings occasionally mixed in. A gun was taken off the street and two innocent school boys have been arrested who might as well have had a flag flying on their car saying, "Arrest me!" These are not the swiftest of lads even on a good day.
Another possible explanation for the postings is that the posters have not taken their psych med for a while...
Just sayin'
I was on hyde park ave aound the 4oo block heading towards
cleary sq and where there was a divide in the road this person was making a uturn, whether allowed or not. Anyway, what im getting at here is that I do a lot of driving and I see a lot of stupid things out here. This person attempts to make the uturn and goes straight across the road instead of keeping the wheel turned like most of us do. Now don't forget she has traffic heading for her so now she has to back up again and she backs straight up where her car is again onto the other side where she came from originally without turning the wheel so that she will be able to continue on her way and now of course what does she do ? She drives straight ahead again turning her wheel slightly so now she has to back up again. I then seen there was an opening for me to continue so I snuck by. The moral of the story is that people don't realize how many idiots and I mean idiots that are out there driving without a license and a lot of them that do have their license don't have a clue. I'm sorry but that's the truth. For these two boobs that got caught with the gun, if its where I think they were I don't think that it is illegal to make a uturn there. Do you realize how many people make uturns out there that think its ok to do ? I can go on and on but you have some real beauties out there and this state should make people have some kind of training to be able to drive here. Remember, driving is not a given