State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2018).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A18-1446

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Davon Keontae Garner,
Appellant.

Filed June 24, 2019
Affirmed
Larkin, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-18-6087

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Linda K. Jenny, Assistant County
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Chang Y. Lau, Assistant Public
Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decide d by Larkin, Presiding Judge; Ross, Judge; and Bratvold,
Judge.

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U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
LARKIN, Judge
Appellant challenges his conviction of possession of a firearm by a prohibited
person, arguing that the district court erred by denying his motion to suppress the firearm
as the fruit of an unlawful seizure. We affirm.
FACTS
Respondent State of Minnesota charged appellant Davon Keontae Garner with
possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. Garner moved to suppress the firearm,
arguing that it was obtained during an unlawful search and seizure. The district court held
a hearing on Garner’s motion . Minneapolis Police Officer Andrew Schroeder testified at
the hearing, and the district court received a Snapchat video that Garner had uploaded as
evidence. The district court found the relevant facts to be as follows.
In January 2018, Officer Schroeder learned that Garner was a potential suspect in a
shots-fired incident. Officer Schroeder saw a photograph of Garner with known gang
members in a daily intelligence brief discussing the incident, and he began to follow Garner
on social media. Officer Schroeder determined that Garner was prohibited from possessing
a firearm. 1 Officer Schroeder also spoke with several confidential reliable informants
(CRIs) regarding Garner.
On March 5, 2018 , Officer Schroeder saw a photo on Garner’s public Snapchat
account that depicted Garner holding a gun while wearing a black hooded sweatshirt.

1 Garner was convicted of aggravated robbery in 2011.

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Officer Schroeder also saw a video on Garner’s Snapchat account that depicted Garner
holding the same gun in va rious poses while wearing a red T -shirt. The video included a
timestamp indicating that it was posted “5h ago.” Based on Officer Schroeder’s experience
as a law-enforcement officer, he believed that the gun was a firearm, and not an airsoft or
BB gun, because of its extended magazine and larger barrel diameter. Officer Schroeder
told Minneapolis Police Sergeant Peterson from the Weapons Investigation Unit about
Garner’s Snapchat video.
On March 7 , a CRI whom Officer Schroeder had used before informed him that
Garner was on the Megabus headed to Minneapolis from Milwaukee and that he had a gun.
Officer Schroeder shared that information with Sergeant Peterson, and Sergeant Peterson
surveilled the Megabus station with other members of the Weapons Investigation Unit.
They observed Garner leave a bus with a red backpack and enter a vehicle. Sergeant
Peterson, Officer Schroeder, and the other officers followed the vehicle, and Sergean t
Peterson instructed Officer Schroeder to “make a felony stop, due to the possible presence
of the gun and [Garner’s criminal] history.” Officer Schroeder stopped the vehicle. Garner
was in the back seat wearing the same black hooded sweatshirt that he wore in the Snapchat
photo.
After the occupants of the vehicle were removed, Officer Schroeder opened the rear
driver’s side door and smelled marijuana in the vehicle. Officer Schroeder observed a red
and gray backpack behind the driver’s seat. He opened the backpack and discovered a
handgun with an extended magazine inside. Police arrested Garner for being a prohibited
person in possession of a firearm.

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The district court denied Garner’s motion to suppress. Garner stipulate d to the
prosecution’s case under Minn. R. Crim. P. 26.01, subd. 4, to obtain review of the district
court’s suppression ruling, and the district court found him guilty of possession of a firearm
by a prohibited person. The district court entered judgment of conviction and sente nced
Garner to serve 60 months in prison. Garner appeals.
D E C I S I O N
Garner contends that his conviction must be reversed because the police unlawfully
stopped the vehicle in which he was a passenger and the firearm “would not have been
discovered if [the] officers had not conducted the illegal stop.” 2 See State v. Diede , 795
N.W.2d 836, 842 (Minn. 2011) (“Evidence obtained as a result of a seizure without
reasonable suspicion must be suppressed.”).
The United States and Minnesota Constitutions guarantee “[t]he right of the people
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects” against “unreasonable searches
and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV; Minn. Const. art. I, § 10. “The touchstone of the
Fourth Amendment is reasonableness.” State v. Johnson, 813 N.W.2d 1, 5 (Minn. 2012)
(quotation omitted). Generally, warrantless searches and seizures are per se unreasonable.
State v. Horst, 880 N.W.2d 24, 33 (Minn. 2016). However, a police off icer may initiate a
limited, investigatory stop without a warrant if the officer has reasonable, articulable
suspicion of criminal activity. State v. Munson, 594 N.W.2d 128, 136 (Minn. 1999) (citing
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 22, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1880 (1968)).

2 Garner does not alternatively argue that even if his seizure was lawful, the warrantless
search of the vehicle and backpack was unconstitutional.

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In determining whether reasonable suspicion exists, Minnesota courts “consider the
totality of the circumstances and acknowledge that trained law enforcement officers are
permitted to make inferences and deductions that would be beyond the competence of an
untrained person.” State v. Richardson , 622 N.W.2d 823, 825 (Minn. 2001). The
reasonable-suspicion standard is “less demanding than probable cause,” but requires more
than an unarticulated “hunch.” State v. Timberlake , 744 N.W.2d 390, 393 (Minn. 2 008)
(quotation omitted) . This court reviews a district court’s determination of reasonable
suspicion de novo. State v. Smith, 814 N.W.2d 346, 350 (Minn. 2012).
“The reasonable suspicion standard can . . . be met based on information provided
by a reliable informant.” Timberlake, 744 N.W.2d at 393. “But information given by an
informant must bear indicia of reliability that make the alleged criminal conduct
sufficiently likely to justify an investigatory stop by police.” Id. at 393-94.
When police re ly on information provided by an
informant, all of the stated facts relating to the informer should
be considered in making a totality -of-the-circumstances
analysis. Police may rely on an informant’s tip if the tip has
sufficient indicia of reliability. When assessing reliability,
courts examine the credibility of the informant and the basis of
the informant’s knowledge in light of all the circumstances.

State v. Cook, 610 N.W.2d 664, 667 (Minn. App. 2000) (quotation and citations omitted),
review denied (Minn. July 25, 2000).
This court has articulated six factors that are relevant when assessing the reliability
of a confidential, but not anonymous, informant:
(1) a first-time citizen informant is presumably reliable; (2) an
informant who has given relia ble information in the past is
likely also currently reliable; (3) an informant’s reliability can

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be established if the police can c orroborate the information;
(4) the informant is presumably more reliable if the informant
voluntarily comes forward; (5) in narcotics cases, “controlled
purchase” is a term of art that indicates reliability; and (6) an
informant is minimally more reliable if the informant makes a
statement against the informant’s interests.

State v. Ross , 676 N.W.2d 301, 304 (Minn. App. 2004) , review denied (Minn. June 15,
2004).
Garner argues that the CRI’s tip did not provide a constitutionally adequate basis
for his seizure “because the state did not establish that the informant was reliable or that
the informant possessed a sufficient basis of knowledge.”
As to the CRI’s reliability, only the second and third reliability factors are relevant
here. “The second factor is fulfilled by a simple statement that the informant has been
reliable in the past . . . .” Id. It is not necessary fo r officers to provide details regarding
the informant’s past veracity. Munson, 594 N.W.2d at 136; Ross, 676 N.W.2d at 304.
Officer Schroeder’s testimony regarding whether the CRI had given reliable
information in the past wa s limited. As to that issue, he testified only that the CRI was
“[r]eliable” and had been used “[m]ultiple times” in the past. Although that testimony does
not provide detailed information regarding the CRI’s past veracity, it reasonably conveys
that the CRI had provided reliable information in the past. See State v. Wiley, 366 N.W.2d
265, 269 (Minn. 1985) (interpreting language in a search warrant affidavit that an informant
“has been used over several years successfully” “in a practical, commonsense manner” to
conclude “that the informant had provided accurate information to the police in the past”).

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As to the third reliability factor, Garner concedes that the police corroborated the
CRI’s report that Garner was traveling from Milwaukee to Minneapolis by Megabus.
“[C]orroboration of even minor details can lend credence to the informant’s information
where the police know the identity of the informant.” State v. Ward, 580 N.W.2d 67, 71
(Minn. App. 1998) (quotation omitted).
Moreover, t he Snapchat video also corrobora ted the CRI’s tip. When Officer
Schroeder viewed the Snapchat video on March 5, it contained a timestamp indicating that
it had been posted “5h ago.” Based on his understanding of how Snapchat works, Officer
Schroeder testified that timestamps for media uploaded to Snapchat indicate not only when
the media was uploaded, but also when the media was created. Officer Schroeder explained
that if a Snapchat user takes a photograph and then immediately uploads it to the user’s
Snapchat account, the photograph will have the timestamp “taken one minute ago.” If a
user uploads a photograph that was taken a week earlier, the photograph will have the
timestamp “taken from memories.” Officer Schroeder further testified that because the
timestamp on Garner’s Snapchat video indicated that it had been posted “5h ago,” and not
“taken from memories,” he believed it was recorded on March 5.
The supreme court has said that a “one-shot type of crime, such as a single instance
of possession or sale of some form of contraband, will support a finding of probable cause
only for a few days at best.” State v. Cavegn , 356 N.W.2d 671, 673 (Minn. 1984).
Applying that principle in this case, the Snapchat video showing Garner in possession of a

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gun approximately 48 hours before the CRI reported that Garner was cu rrently in
possession of a gun tends to corroborate the CRI’s tip.3
Indeed, Garner acknowledges that “[i]f the video was made five hours before the
officer viewed it, then arguably there would be a sufficient temporal nexus—approximately
two days—between the time [he] purportedly possessed the gun and the time he was seized
on March 7.” But he argues that “the Snapchat video does not support [his] March 7 seizure
because the video showing [him] holding an alleged gun at some unspecified place and
time does not support a reasonable suspicion that [he] was in possession of a gun at the
time of the stop.” Garner reasons that although “there was a timestamp on the Snapchat
video, it is unclear from watching the video whether the timestamp references when the
video was made or when it was uploaded.”
Officer Schroeder’s testimony is the only evidence regarding the Snapchat
timestamp. Garner did not challenge Officer Schroeder’s testimony regarding the meaning
of the timestamp or present any evidence to refute it. And the district court expressly found
Officer Schroeder’s testimony at the evidentiary hearing credible. This court defers to a
district court’s credibility determinations. State v. Klamar, 823 N.W.2d 687, 691 (Minn.
App. 2012). Thus, Officer Schroeder’s testimony establishes that the Snapchat video was

3 The caselaw discussing police corroboration of a CRI’s tip normally involves
circumstances in which the police corroborated the tip after receiving it. See, e.g., State v.
Lester, 874 N.W.2d 768, 769 -70, 772 (Minn. 2016) (stating that police corroborated the
details of a CRI’s tip by observing a man described by the CRI arrive at the location
identified by the CRI within the specified tim eframe). We are not aware of any authority
that prevents consideration of the corroborative effect of information obtained prior to
receiving a CRI’s tip.

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both recorded and uploaded on March 5. Given the short time between the creation of the
video and the receipt of the informant’s tip, the video corroborates the tip.
As to the CRI’s basis of knowledge, Garner argues that the CRI’s information
regarding Garner’s travel arrangements and wh ereabouts did not explain the basis for the
CRI’s assertion that Garner was in the possession of a handgun.
A “basis of knowledge may be supplied directly, by first-hand information, such as
when a CRI states that he purchased drugs from a suspect or saw a suspect selling drugs to
another” or it may be “supplied indirectly through self -verifying details that allow an
inference that the information was gained in a reliable way and is not merely based on a
suspect’s general reputation or on a casual rumor circulating in the criminal underworld.”
Cook, 610 N.W.2d at 6 68. Although the record does not contain evidence of first -hand
information directly establishing the CRI’s basis of knowledge, the Snapchat video allows
an inference that the CRI’s information was gained in a reliable way and is not merely
based on reputation or on rumor. Unlike Cook, a case in which we said that “any link
between [the defendant] and illegal activity was nonexistent,” id., the Snap chat video
established a link between Garner and the illegal activity for which he was stopped :
possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.
In sum, the record adequately establishes the CRI’s reliability and basis of
knowledge. And the totality of the circumstances—including Garner’s status as a potential
suspect in a shots -fired incident, Garner ’s ineligibility to possess a firearm, the recent
Snapchat video showing Garner with a firearm, and the CRI’s tip that Garner would be
arriving in Minneapolis on a bus with a firearm—provided reasonable articulable suspicion

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that Garner was involved in criminal activity when the police stopped him for investigative
purposes after he left the bus station. The district court therefore did not err by denying
Garner’s motion to suppress.
Affirmed.