State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A20-0378

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Luis Omar Chaparro Vargas,
Appellant.

Filed April 12, 2021
Affirmed
Ross, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-19-3218

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

Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Jonathan P. Schmidt, Assistant County
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

John Pavelko, Special Assistant Public Defender, Fredrikson & Byron, P.A., Minneapolis,
Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Ross, Presiding Judge; Connolly , Judge; and Smith,
Tracy M., Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
ROSS, Judge
Minneapolis Police executed a high-risk search warrant at 5:45 a.m. at a house from
which they suspected methamphetamine and heroin were being sold. As police were
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arriving, Luis Chaparro-Vargas walked from the house and entered a parked car. Police
stopped Chaparro-Vargas, and he told them he was carrying a gun and methamphetamine.
Appealing from his conviction of unlawfully possessing a firearm, Chaparro-Vargas argues
that evidence of the possession is inadmissible because police uncovered it only because
they unconstitutionally seized him. Because police had reasonable suspicion to detain and
question Chaparro-Vargas under all the circumstances, we affirm.
FACTS
Police obtained a warrant for a nighttime, unannounced search of a North
Minneapolis house and a black BMW parked in front. Based on an informant’s statements,
police had suspected that two men, “Javi” and “Flacko,” were selling methamphetamine
and heroin, that they possessed firearms, and that one of them sold drugs out of the BMW.
The warrant application also stated that shots had been fired in the alley behind the house
and that Javier Acevedo, a resident there, was recently arrested at the home for possessing
methamphetamine. It also stated that police had found drug residue in numerous plastic
baggies and a bullet shell casing in the home’s trash the same day as the warrant
application. The search warrant authorized police to search the house “and any and all
garages, outbuildings, and vehicles associated with the address” for evidence of drug
dealing.
Police executed the warrant at 5:45 in the morning of November 20, 2018. Detective
Terrence Sleavin was parked about 120 feet from the home when he saw a man “come
from the area of the sidewalk from the direction of the house” and begin entering a
dark-colored BMW parked on the street in front of the house. Police detained the man,
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Luis Chaparro-Vargas, because he was “involved with the residence,” and the officers
needed to learn whether he was armed before they approached the house with their backs
to him. Police immediately handcuffed Chaparro-Vargas, and he told them that he was
carrying a firearm and methamphetamine. Police searched Chaparro- Vargas and seized a
handgun and drugs.
The state charged Chaparro-Vargas with unlawful possession of a firearm by a
prohibited person. Chaparro-Vargas unsuccessfully moved the district court to suppress the
evidence of the handgun. The parties submitted the case to the district court for a bench
trial on stipulated evidence under Minnesota Rule of Criminal Procedure 26.01 ,
subdivision 4. The district court found Chaparro-Vargas guilty and sentenced him to serve
60 months in prison.
Chaparro-Vargas appeals.
DECISION
Chaparro-Vargas argues that the district court improperly denied his motion to
suppress the evidence as a result of police detaining him in an unconstitutional stop. We
review the district court’s factual findings in its pretrial order for clear error and its legal
determinations de novo. State v. Ortega, 770 N.W.2d 145, 149 (Minn. 2009). The United
States and Minnesota Constitutions protect individuals against unreasonable seizures.
U.S. Const. amend. IV; Minn. Const. art. I, § 10. A police officer may perform a brief,
investigatory detention, commonly called a Terry stop, when he sees conduct leading him
to reasonably conclude that criminal activity might be occurring. State v. Diede,
795 N.W.2d 836, 842 (Minn. 2011). The standard for reasonable suspicion is not high,
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State v. Timberlake, 744 N.W.2d 390, 393 (Minn. 2008), and will be met with “specific
and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts,
reasonably” justify the officer’s conduct, State v. Davis, 732 N.W.2d 173, 182 (Minn.
2007) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1880 (1968)). We determine
the existence of reasonable suspicion based on the totality of the circumstances. State v.
Wiggins, 788 N.W.2d 509, 513 (Minn. App. 2010), review denied (Minn. Nov. 23, 2010).
We have carefully considered Chaparro-Vargas’s arguments under that standard and
conclude that the officers had reasonable suspicion to stop him and investigate to determine
whether he was a danger or involved in the drug-dealing activity that precipitated the
warrant.
Chaparro-Vargas argues that the district court clearly erred by finding that police
saw him walking away from the house and that Acevedo was sitting in the driver’s seat of
the BMW alongside him. Chaparro-Vargas’s absence from the premises and the fact that
he was not named in the search warrant, he claims, make his detention unlawful. The
arguments fail.
We are satisfied that the district court did not clearly err in the findings. A clear
error occurs when we are “left with the definite and firm conviction” of a mistake or when
there is no reasonable evidence supporting the finding. State v. Evans, 756 N.W.2d 854,
870 (Minn. 2008) (quotation omitted). The record does not leave us with this conviction
concerning Chaparro-Vargas’s apparent departure from the house. The fact -finder is
entitled to draw an inference “if reason and experience support the inference.” Tot v. United
States, 319 U.S. 463, 467, 63 S. Ct. 1241, 1244 (1943). Detective Sleavin testified that he
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saw the man “come from the area of the sidewalk f rom the direction of the house” and
enter the BMW parked in front of the house. The district court interpreted the detective’s
testimony reasonably. Chaparro-Vargas’s suggestion that the testimony could have meant
that Chaparro-Vargas was walking down the public sidewalk rather than away from the
house would require us not only to make an uncommon assumption about what the
detective meant by “from” but also to conclude that the district court clearly erred by not
making the assumption. But given Chaparro-Vargas’s trajectory “from the direction of the
house” toward the car in front, the district court could reasonably conclude that the
sidewalk the detective referred to was a private sidewalk, or walkway, linking the house
and the public sidewalk, not the public sidewalk that runs parallel to the street. Indeed, the
detective’s testimony implying the trajectory of Chaparro-Vargas’s course almost compels
the district court’s finding that the detective believed that Chaparro-Vargas was walking
away from the house. We do not suggest that reasonable suspicion would have been lacking
even if he were walking on the public sidewalk, but the district court’s assessment and
testimony seem to place Chaparro-Vargas on the walkway.
Chaparro-Vargas correctly observes that the district court mistakenly stated that
Acevedo, who was named as a suspected drug dealer in the warrant application, was sitting
in the BMW that Chaparro-Vargas entered. But the mistake is not one that we need to
correct on appeal because the district court caught the mistake, corrected itself, and based
its finding on the facts as recounted by the detective’s actual testimony.
We conclude that the circumstances made stopping Chaparro-Vargas reasonable.
We look at all the relevant circumstances in the totality “from the point of view of a trained
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police officer.” State v. Lamar, 382 N.W.2d 226, 229 (Minn. App. 1986), review denied
(Minn. Mar. 27, 1986). The assembled officers knew that a judge had warranted them to
enter a house involving suspected drug dealing and recent gunplay nearby, and they
approached in the early morning while it was still dark. They knew that drugs were
reportedly sold from a black BMW parked in front of the house, and they saw a man who
was seemingly leaving the house just before police arrived enter a car directly in front of
the house.1 A person’s presence in a high-crime area at an unusual hour is a relevant factor
when developing reasonable suspicion. See State v. Uber, 604 N.W.2d 799, 800–02 (Minn.
App. 1999) (“Suspicious activity in an area that has had problems with crime augments the
basis for a lawful investigatory stop.”) . And in this situation, officers executing the
high-risk warrant would soon have their backs to any occupant in the car as they completed
their approach and entered the house. On these facts, we are satisfied that the officers had
reasonable suspicion to detain Chaparro-Vargas and determine both whether he posed a
danger to them and whether he possessed, purchased, or sold illegal drugs.
Chaparro-Vargas raises other arguments, but our holding that police had a sufficient
basis to stop him renders those arguments immaterial. The district court appropriately
denied Chaparro-Vargas’s motion to suppress.
Affirmed.

1 As it happens, the dark blue BMW Chaparro-Vargas entered was not the black BMW
identified in the warrant, and the detective did not testify that he thought it was. We do not
factor the make of the car into our analysis.