Someone calls 911 and reports “shots fired” and describes the shooter as a taller black male with a goatee wearing a white shirt and dark pants. A few blocks away, police see two black males with one appearing to have a goatee and dark pants and a white shirt. When they see the police, the two men split up and walk away. After circling around the block, the police find the male they thought matched the description (the defendant in the case, Quentin Perry) standing next to a car. While one officer talked to Perry another looked for evidence and saw a handgun and two magazines in the car.
The police arrested Perry for possessing the handgun found in the car. During the search incident to arrest, the officer discovered three bullets in his pocket. Perry argued that the evidence seized as a result of the SIA should be suppressed (the bullets) because the officers did not have probable cause to arrest Perry because his description was “not that similar” to the 911 description. The court disagreed and held that under these circumstances “a reasonable officer could have concluded that Perry was the shooter from the bar.
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