In a fairly sloppy opinion, the Second Circuit upheld the denial of qualified immunity to Nicholas Andrzejewski of the Waterbury, Connecticut police department for having arrested and searched the car of Basel Soukaneh for the “crime” of being in a “high crime area” while in possession of a gun for which he had a facially valid permit.

That conduct, as alleged by Plaintiff-Appellee Basel Soukaneh, is that in the course of a routine traffic stop, Andrzejewski unlawfully and violently handcuffed and detained Soukaneh in the back of a police vehicle for over half an hour and conducted a warrantless search of Soukaneh’s vehicle after Soukaneh presented a facially valid firearms permit and disclosed that he possessed a firearm pursuant to the permit. On appeal, Andrzejewski argues we should reverse the district court’s denial of qualified immunity because the presence of the lawfully owned firearm in the vehicle gave him the requisite probable cause to detain Soukaneh, search the interior of his car, and search his trunk.

The initial “stop” involved Andrzejewski approaching an already stopped car, which the court held to be proper.

At approximately 8:43 p.m. on November 12, 2018, Basel Soukaneh stopped his car with the engine running on the side of a street in Waterbury, Connecticut. Soukaneh’s iPhone GPS, located in a holder mounted to the car’s dashboard, was frozen, and he stopped his car to fix it. The area “was dark and [known as] a high crime area well known for prostitution, drug transactions and other criminal activity.” Within seconds after Soukaneh stopped his car, Officer Nicholas Andrzejewski approached the vehicle, knocked on the driver’s side window, and according to Soukaneh, loudly demanded Soukaneh’s driver’s license. The interior vehicle light was on, so although the area was dark, Andrzejewski could see the activity inside of the car when he approached the window. As Soukaneh complied and handed his license over, he also provided Andrzejewski with a facially valid firearms permit. While doing so, Soukaneh also disclosed to Andrzejewski that, per the permit, he was in lawful possession of a pistol that was located in the driver’s side door compartment.

Was there articulable suspicion that a crime was being committed because Souhaneh stopped his car on the street? It was dark, as nights tend to be. It was in a high crime area, as is every area in pretty much any city anywhere. And yet, the court saw no problem with Andrzejewski demanding his license, for doing exactly what drivers are instructed to do by pulling over rather than driving while their attention is focused elsewhere. But I digress.

The court took issue with Andrzejewski’s conduct after the initial stop.

According to Soukaneh’s description, Andrzejewski then violently “dragged [him] out of 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. Andrzejewski then “shoved [Soukaneh] into the rear area of [Andrzejewski’s police] cruiser,” and left Soukaneh “bent over and partially on the floor of the vehicle.” Soukaneh remained “in that position, facing down and unable to see, until another police officer came along several minutes later and helped him sit up.”

Once the other officer repositioned Soukaneh in the cruiser, Soukaneh saw Andrzejewski search his “entire car, both front and rear,” as well as the car’s trunk.

After about a half hour, Soukaneh was released, despite efforts to manufacture some reason to charge him. He then sued. Andrzejewski argued that Soukaneh’s “admitted” possession of a gun provided either sufficient suspicion for a Terry stop or cause for arrest. The court held this was no Terry stop, and that Soukaneh’s facially valid carry permit vitiated any claim of probable cause.

According to Andrzejewski’s argument on appeal, he detained Soukaneh to verify the validity of the gun permit—ostensibly to determine whether Soukaneh possessed the gun in violation of the law. In response, Soukaneh argues that “no reasonable police officer could entertain” the belief that “a facially valid firearms permit [i]s meaningless unless and until the issuing authority confirm[s] that it [i]s legitimate.” Absent something indicating to the officer that the permit might not have been facially valid, or some other evidence of criminality or danger to the officer, we agree with Soukaneh. Accordingly, we conclude that Andrzejewski did not have the requisite probable cause to justify Soukaneh’s detention simply because he was notified of the presence of a gun and presented with the accompanying permit.

The rule for carry permit holders is that if they’re stopped by police, they’re to immediately inform the officer that they possess a gun and show their permit. If they failed to show a permit, their possession would give rise to probable cause. Under Andrzejewski’s argument, the permit holder would be arrested whether they had a permit or not, showed the permit or not, nullifying the point of having a carry permit.

While all of this may seem too obvious for words, this decision came out of the Second Circuit, a court notoriously unfriendly toward guns, and generally inclined to ignore the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence and daring SCOTUS to reverse it.

By arguing that he was just detaining Souhaneh to verify the validity of a facially valid carry permit with no indication that there was anything amiss. the cop gave the court a quasi-plausible excuse to rule in favor of the officer on qualified immunity. The court refused to do so and rejected this fabricated rationalization for arresting a guy for doing everything right and nothing wrong, even if the court refused to go so far as to admit that pulling over to fix one’s GPS is not indicative of any crime.