United States v. Warner

Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Appeals Tenth Circuit FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT _________________________________ October 22, 2026 Christopher M. Wolpert UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Clerk of Court Plaintiff - Appellant, v. No. 25-2149 (D.C. No. 1:24-CR-00088-DHU-1) NATHAN WARNER, (D.N.M.) Defendant - Appellee. _________________________________ ORDER AND JUDGMENT * _________________________________ Before BACHARACH, PHILLIPS, and ROSSMAN, Circuit Judges. _________________________________ This appeal requires us to decide whether a momentary investigatory detention complied with the Fourth Amendment. An employee of a sporting- goods store called the police to report that a suspicious person, carrying what looked like a Taser, had waited to enter the store until all other customers had left. The caller requested that a police officer come “check it out.” The store was in a fairly high-crime area, and when the two responding officers arrived at about 9:00 p.m., it was dark and businesses in the area were closing. The officers spoke with several of the store’s employees, who appeared visibly This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the * doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 2 frightened and pointed to a man sitting in a specific truck in the parking lot. Approaching the truck, the officers saw a man inside and weapons within his reach. The man disobeyed the officers’ initial orders to put his hands on the dashboard and stay in the truck, and the officers detained him. During the detention, the officers identified the man as Nathan Warner and discovered that he possessed drugs and other contraband. Warner was charged with several crimes as a result. Arguing that the officers lacked reasonable suspicion of criminal activity for a few seconds after he exited the truck and raised his hands, Warner moved to suppress the drugs, firearms, and statements he made. The district court agreed with Warner and granted his motion. On appeal, the government contends this was error. We agree with the government. The totality of the circumstances here furnished the officers with reasonable suspicion to detain Warner. We also conclude that the scope of the detention was reasonable under the circumstances. Therefore, exercising jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3731, we reverse the district court’s suppression order and remand for further proceedings. 2  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 3 BACKGROUND I. Factual Background 1 On December 11, 2023, an employee at a sporting-goods store called the Los Lunas Police Department to report a suspicious man who had entered the store. The employee advised that the man had “waited for all of the customers to leave before going inside” the store and that “he possibly had a [T]aser on his person.” Warner, 2025 WL 3002933, at *1. The employee asked for a police officer to come to the store to “check it out.” Id. Sergeant Anthony Romero and Officer Jordan Gonzalez arrived at the store at about 9:00 p.m., when it was dark outside and businesses in the area were closing. Sergeant Romero testified that the store was in “a fairly high-crime area” based on “multiple incidents” at surrounding businesses, including three robberies at the bank across the street. R. at 89. As the officers approached the storefront, Sergeant Romero saw several employees inside who looked “scared.” Warner, 2025 WL 3002933, at *1. Through a locked door, Sergeant Romero asked the employees where the suspicious man was, and they pointed to a truck parked in the lot. Other than 1 Except when stated otherwise, we derive these facts from the district court’s order on the motion to suppress and undisputed evidence in the record. See United States v. Warner, No. 24-CR-88, 2025 WL 3002933, at *1–2 (D.N.M. Oct. 27, 2025). We also note that the record is either silent or unclear about several key facts. For example, we don’t know exactly when the officers arrived at the store or when the store closed. We also don’t know why the employee-caller believed Warner had waited for all other customers to leave the store before entering. 3  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 4 the officers’ police vehicles, the truck was the only vehicle in the lot. Still, Sergeant Romero confirmed with the employees which truck they were referring to, and then he and Officer Gonzalez walked toward it. As they did so, one officer shined his flashlight into the truck, and Sergeant Romero saw a man sitting in the driver’s seat with an AR-style rifle within his reach. The man was later identified as Warner. Officer Gonzalez saw the rifle, too, as well as a knife tucked between the middle console and the driver’s seat. At this point, both officers drew their firearms and held them in the “low ready” position, meaning they were pointed at the truck but not Warner. Id. Sergeant Romero testified that he drew his firearm because of the darkness, the employees’ evident fear, and the rifle inside the truck. He believed that he “needed to at least detain [Warner] to see what was going on.” R. at 80–81. And because the caller said Warner had waited for all the customers to leave before he had entered the store around closing time, Sergeant Romero thought Warner might “attempt to rob the place.” Id. at 83–84. Seeing the rifle also led Sergeant Romero to suspect that the Taser the caller thought Warner carried might be a pistol. The officers ordered Warner to “put [his] hands on the dash” and stay in the truck. Warner, 2025 WL 3002933, at *2. But Warner instead quickly exited the vehicle, and Sergeant Romero saw the knife Officer Gonzalez had seen moments before. The officers then told Warner to stay still with his hands up, and Warner did so after standing. Sergeant Romero pointed his firearm at 4  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 5 Warner. Then, for the next minute or so, Warner made several comments about having wires on his body that were connected to explosives in the truck. The officers placed Warner in handcuffs; patted him down; and seized drugs, drug paraphernalia, and a pistol from his pockets. Dispatch later advised that the truck was stolen and that Warner had numerous outstanding warrants for his arrest. The officers then arrested Warner. 2 II. Procedural History A federal grand jury indicted Warner on two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924; 3 one count of possessing with intent to distribute fifty grams or more of methamphetamine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(A)(viii); and one count of using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug- trafficking crime, and possessing the same firearm in furtherance of that drug- trafficking crime, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i). Warner pleaded not guilty to all charges, and he moved to suppress the firearms and drugs the officers found and certain statements he made during the encounter. In sum, Warner argued that the officers lacked reasonable suspicion The officers never found a Taser or explosives on Warner’s person or in 2 the truck. One of the felon-in-possession counts related to Warner’s possession of 3 a firearm and ammunition on the night of his arrest. The other was based on his possession during a separate incident two days earlier. 5  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 6 of criminal activity when he obeyed their commands to raise his hands, so all the evidence obtained after that was tainted and must be suppressed. 4 In opposing the motion, the government contended that the officers had reasonable suspicion at the detention’s inception based on (1) the store employee’s call to the police; (2) the employees’ location behind a locked door when the officers arrived at the store and their confirmation that it was the activity of the man then in the truck that prompted their call; (3) the rifle and knife within Warner’s reach; and (4) Warner’s initial failure to comply with the officers’ orders. 5 After an evidentiary hearing at which both Sergeant Romero and Officer Gonzalez testified, the district court granted Warner’s motion to suppress. The In the district court, Warner did not argue that the officers lacked 4 reasonable suspicion to detain him once he mentioned explosives, nor does he make this argument on appeal. Rather, in Warner’s view, these comments must be suppressed because he made them after the officers unlawfully detained him without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. 5 In the alternative, the government argued that the officers were acting in their “community caretaking” capacity when they approached Warner. See United States v. King, 990 F.2d 1552, 1560 (10th Cir. 1993) (“[P]olice officers are not only permitted, but expected, to exercise what the Supreme Court has termed ‘community caretaking functions, totally divorced from the detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute.’” (quoting Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 441 (1973))). When carrying out this non-investigatory function, a police officer can constitutionally detain someone “regardless of any suspected criminal activity” if “specific and articulable facts” justify doing so. Id. (cleaned up). But the district court rejected this argument, and the government has not appealed the issue. 6  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 7 district court concluded that the police “stopped” Warner for Fourth Amendment purposes when Warner “began to comply” with their orders by “raising his hands.” 6 Warner, 2025 WL 3002933, at *4; see Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 254 (2007) (“A police officer may make a seizure by a show of authority . . . , but there is no seizure without actual submission.”). So the officers needed to have reasonable suspicion to detain Warner at that time. But in the court’s view, the information then known to the officers fell short of this standard. It reasoned that the employee’s call for service and the AR-style rifle in the truck did not give the officers a “particularized and objective basis for suspecting [Warner] of criminal activity.” Warner, 2025 WL 3002933, at *4. The court then ordered that all evidence obtained because of the unconstitutional stop be suppressed. The government timely appealed. STANDARD OF REVIEW “When reviewing a district court’s decision on a motion to suppress, we view the record in the light most favorable to the prevailing party and accept the district court’s findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous.” United States v. Lowe, 117 F.4th 1253, 1260 (10th Cir. 2024). But we “review de novo the ultimate determination of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment.” 6 As explained in more detail below, the Fourth Amendment governs two kinds of investigatory detentions: “arrests,” for which the police need “probable cause,” and “stops,” for which they need only “reasonable suspicion.” King, 990 F.2d at 1556–57. Both arrests and stops are “seizures,” so they must be “reasonable” under the Fourth Amendment. Id. When we say “stop” throughout this order, we mean it in this technical sense. 7  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 8 United States v. Mosley, 743 F.3d 1317, 1322 (10th Cir. 2014) (quoting United States v. Apperson, 441 F.3d 1162, 1184 (10th Cir. 2006)). DISCUSSION On appeal, the government doesn’t challenge the district court’s ruling that Warner’s detention began when he began to comply with their orders by raising his hands. Instead, it argues the court erred in concluding that the officers lacked the reasonable suspicion necessary to lawfully detain Warner at that time. Based on our de novo review of that determination, we agree. The totality of the circumstances known to the officers when they first detained Warner—including the call for service; the employees’ visible fear and identification of him; the time of day and location of the encounter, particularly because stores were closing and the parking lot was otherwise empty; the AR- style rifle and knife within Warner’s reach; and Warner’s failure to comply with the officers’ initial orders—add up to reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot. After explaining why, we address, and ultimately reject, Warner’s alternative argument that even if the officers had reasonable suspicion, their show of force impermissibly “transformed the stop into a de facto arrest requiring probable cause.” Resp. Br. at 2. The officers could reasonably believe that Warner was armed and dangerous, and the steps they took to protect their personal safety were also reasonable. In short, Warner’s Fourth Amendment rights were not violated. 8  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 9 I. The officers had reasonable suspicion to stop Warner. The Fourth Amendment protects “the people” from “unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. Often, a search or seizure must be supported by a warrant and probable cause to be reasonable. United States v. Raban, 162 F.4th 1223, 1231 (10th Cir. 2025). But not always. For example, a police officer can “stop” someone—that is, momentarily seize that person— without either a warrant or probable cause if that officer has reasonable suspicion that criminal activity has occurred, is occurring, or is about to occur. United States v. Daniels, 101 F.4th 770, 776 (10th Cir. 2024). Because both parties agree with the district court that Sergeant Romero and Officer Gonzalez stopped Warner when he exited the truck and raised his hands, we initially focus on whether reasonable suspicion justified the stop by then. But what is reasonable suspicion? The concept can’t easily be “reduced to a neat set of legal rules.” United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989) (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 232 (1983)). Still, several well- established principles guide the analysis. Police must have “specific and articulable facts” suggesting that criminal activity is afoot and that the person the officers are stopping is involved. Daniels, 101 F.4th at 776 (quoting United States v. Madrid, 713 F.3d 1251, 1256 (10th Cir. 2013)). The likelihood of criminal activity required for reasonable suspicion is less than what probable cause demands, but inchoate hunches won’t do. Id. The standard is also an objective one: the question is whether “the facts available to the officer . . . 9  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 10 [would] warrant a [person] of reasonable caution in the belief that the action taken was appropriate.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21–22 (1968) (cleaned up). So the officer’s subjective good faith and intentions are irrelevant. United States v. McHugh, 639 F.3d 1250, 1256 (10th Cir. 2011). Critically, the reasonable-suspicion inquiry requires that we look at the “totality of the circumstances.” Daniels, 101 F.4th at 776 (quoting United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417 (1981)). This means we can’t evaluate the factors underlying a claim to reasonable suspicion in isolation. Id. Sometimes, even innocent conduct can create reasonable suspicion when we consider the “whole picture.” Id. (cleaned up). But by requiring some objective justification for a stop, the Fourth Amendment strikes a fair “balance between the public interest and the individual’s right to personal security free from arbitrary interference by law officers.” Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 108–09 (1977) (cleaned up). With these principles in mind, we turn to the reasonable-suspicion factors the government identifies in this case. We discuss them individually, and then together. A. The Call for Service and the Officers’ Interaction with the Store Employees The government first emphasizes the import of the call for police assistance and the officers’ ensuing interaction with the fearful store employees. “A tip to the police, like a 911 call, can justify an investigatory 10  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 11 stop if . . . the tip furnishes both sufficient indicia of reliability and sufficient information to provide reasonable suspicion that criminal conduct” has occurred, is occurring, or is about to occur. Daniels, 101F.4th at 777 (cleaned up). Addressing reliability, our analysis is both “‘case-specific’ and factor- based.” Id. (quoting United States v. Chavez, 660 F.3d 1215, 1222 (10th Cir. 2011)). We consider (1) whether the caller was anonymous; (2) “whether the [caller] reported contemporaneous, firsthand knowledge”; (3) the call’s level of detail; (4) the caller’s stated motivation; and (5) whether the police could corroborate the caller’s information. Id. (quoting Chavez, 660 F.3d at 1222). No factor is dispositive. Id. The call here was sufficiently reliable. Though the caller is not named in the record, the officers knew that the call came from an employee at a specific sporting-goods store. The police therefore had “some basis for discovering [the caller’s] identity,” making it less likely the report was “phony.” United States v. Copening, 506 F.3d 1241, 1246 (10th Cir. 2007); accord Chavez, 660 F.3d at 1222 (because police knew a caller was an employee at a specific Wal-Mart store, the call was more reliable). And as the district court found, when the officers arrived at the store, they spoke with fearful employees who “confirmed” the location of the suspicious person. Warner, 2025 WL 3002933, at *1. These facts establish that the employee’s call was contemporaneous and corroborated some of its content. 11  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 12 Warner doesn’t deny that the call here bore indicia of reliability. Rather, citing Navarette v. California, he argues that the call contained insufficient information that criminal activity was afoot. 572 U.S. 393, 401–02 (2014). Someone who waits to enter a store until all other customers have left, as the caller here reported had happened, may or may not be planning a robbery. And according to Sergeant Romero, it is not unlawful to carry a Taser in New Mexico. R. at 97. So even though this conduct could raise concerns, the caller’s allegations alone were “not enough” to identify a crime Warner might be involved in. Warner, 2025 WL 3002933, at *4. We agree that the call “alleged no criminal activity or dangerous behaviors.” Daniels, 101 F.4th at 778. Warner’s conduct may have struck the caller as “odd, but it [was] not obviously illegal.” Id. In this way, the substance of the call resembles the one at issue in United States v. Daniels, 101 F.4th 770. There, a near-anonymous 911 caller reported that “[t]hree Black men, wearing dark hoodies and jeans, were intermittently taking guns in and out of their pockets and getting in and out of a dark SUV.” Id. at 775. The caller thought they were “getting ready to do something.” Id. Though we recognized that “reasonable suspicion may exist even where a . . . call fails to allege criminal activity,” we thought this conduct was “simply too generic.” Id. at 778 (cleaned up). So we ultimately gave the call “little weight” in our reasonable-suspicion analysis. Id. 12  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 13 Walking into a store after all other customers have left can be similarly generic. But the call here differs from the Daniels call in at least two significant respects. First, when Sergeant Romero and Officer Gonzalez arrived at the store, they observed that the employees “appeared scared” and reasonably attributed that to Warner’s behavior. Warner, 2025 WL 3002933, at *1. Though the behavior the caller described could have been innocent, the employees’ visible fear gave the officers another reason to think it might not be. Conversely, though the Daniels caller was concerned enough to call the police to make her report, those responding officers did not interact with her at the scene or otherwise understand her to be fearful of what she saw. “Reasonable suspicion depends on the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent [people], not legal technicians, act,” and officers can “make commonsense judgments and inferences about human behavior.” District of Columbia v. R.W., 608 U.S. 22, 25–26 (2026) (per curiam) (cleaned up). Considering the employees’ visible fear when deciding whether the caller’s report described criminal activity afoot or innocent conduct—though far from determinative—is one such commonsense judgment. 7 7 The parties dispute the significance of the employees speaking to the officers through a locked door. The government suggests the employees locked the door out of fear of Warner, and Warner suggests they did so because locking the door was part of their ordinary closing procedure. The record is unclear on this point, and the district court did not make a finding one way or the other. But at the suppression hearing, Sergeant Romero testified that (footnote continued) 13  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 14 Cf. United States v. Gandara-Salinas, 327 F.3d 1127, 1130 (10th Cir. 2001) (courts must defer to an officer’s “ability to draw on his own experience and specialized training to make inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information available to him” (cleaned up)). Second, in Daniels, we emphasized that because the defendant “obviously did not match the description” of the men the caller identified, it would have been “objectively unreasonable” for the officer to believe the defendant was one of those men. Id. at 778 (cleaned up). An officer must have reasonable suspicion to stop a particular person, and thus the Daniels call didn’t do much to justify stopping the defendant instead of someone else. Id. (citing United States v. Fisher, 597 F.3d 1156, 1158–59 (10th Cir. 2010)). Not so here. Again, Sergeant Romero and Officer Gonzalez were able to confirm with the employees precisely who prompted the call, and the officers stopped that person. Indeed, Warner was sitting in the only civilian vehicle in the parking lot. This is therefore not a case in which police used a vague tip to arbitrarily stop whomever they pleased. See United States v. Johnson, 364 F.3d 1185, 1191 (10th Cir. 2004) (citing Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 272 (2000)) finding the employees behind a locked door was one of the reasons he ultimately felt he needed to detain Warner. Even if the record were clear on this point, it would not meaningfully impact our analysis. The pertinent fact—that the employees appeared afraid—is undisputed. 14  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 15 (“Overly generic tips, even made in good faith, could give police excessive discretion to stop and search large numbers of citizens.”). In sum, we’re left with a call that weighs more heavily in favor of reasonable suspicion of criminal activity than the call in Daniels, but one that would still be insufficient on its own. B. The Time of Day and Location of the Stop The government next points to the time of day and location of the encounter. The officers stopped Warner at around 9:00 p.m. when it was dark out. And the store was in an area Sergeant Romero said was “fairly” high crime, in part because the bank across the street had been robbed three times. Though someone’s “presence in an area of expected criminal activity, standing alone, is not enough” to create reasonable suspicion, it “is a relevant consideration in the . . . analysis.” Id. at 1193 (cleaned up). The time the stop occurred is similarly part of the “totality of the circumstances” but not dispositive. See Daniels, 101 F.4th at 781. Our consideration of time and location is not a “check-the-box exercise.” Id. at 782 (cleaned up). Like the reasonable-suspicion analysis more generally, “relevant contextual considerations” may affect how much significance we give these factors. Id. (cleaned up). So though 9:00 p.m. is not ordinarily a suspicious time to be out and about, the time is more suspicious when, as here, someone is alone in an empty parking lot when businesses have closed or are closing. Cf. id. (reasoning that it’s not unusual for football fans to be out late 15  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 16 the night of the Super Bowl, and a “well-lit” and “densely populated” parking lot is an unlikely location for criminal activity). And because Warner’s behavior struck Sergeant Romero as consistent with someone planning a robbery, the fact that multiple robberies had occurred across the street makes the high-crime nature of the area more salient. As with the call for service, the time of day and location of the stop support but don’t alone satisfy reasonable suspicion. So we continue on to our consideration of the government’s other factors. C. The AR-Style Rifle and the Knife The government also highlights that before the officers detained Warner, they saw both an AR-style rifle and a knife within his reach in the truck. It is ordinarily lawful to openly possess either in New Mexico. See N.M. Stat. Ann. § 30-7-2(A) (prohibiting the carrying of “a concealed loaded firearm or any other type of deadly weapon”); see also Daniels, 101 F.4th at 778 (“[W]e cannot look with suspicion on citizens presumably exercising their Second Amendment rights in a lawful way.” (citing N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 70 (2022))). Like walking into a store just before closing time, possessing a rifle and a knife is not inherently criminal. But “when combined with other facts,” doing so can still “contribute to the existence of reasonable suspicion.” United States v. Young, 99 F.4th 1136, 1146 (10th Cir. 2023). This is because “weapons . . . [,] whether legally carried or not, can be 16  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 17 used for unlawful purposes.” United States v. Briggs, 720 F.3d 1281, 1289 (10th Cir. 2013). Once again, the rifle and knife in the truck are part of the totality of circumstances we must consider, but they aren’t enough on their own. D. Warner’s Failure to Comply with the Officers’ Initial Orders The final factor the government identifies is Warner’s initial failure to comply with the officers’ orders. Recall that both parties agree with the district court that the Fourth Amendment stop began when Warner complied with the officers’ commands by raising his hands after exiting the truck. But before doing so, Warner disregarded the officers’ orders to “put [his] hands on the dash” and stay in the truck. Warner, 2025 WL 3002933, at *2. Indeed, he did the “opposite” and got out. Mosley, 743 F.3d at 1327. Both Warner’s initial noncompliance—and his eventual compliance seconds later—are part of the totality of circumstances we must consider. 8 See id. at 1327–28 (defendant’s 8 We note that the district court’s order is inconsistent regarding what the officers ordered Warner to do and when. In the background section of its order, the district court stated that after the officers saw Warner sitting in the truck next to the rifle, one officer ordered Warner to “put [his] hands on the dash.” Warner, 2025 WL 3002933, at *1–2. An officer then told Warner, “[D]on’t get out!” Id. at *2. Warner proceeded to exit the truck, and the officers ordered him to “put [his] hands up!” Id. It was at this point that Warner complied. Id. But in the analysis section of its order, the district court stated that Warner was stopped when the officers drew their firearms, “ordered him out of the truck,” and Warner complied by “stepping out of the vehicle and raising his hands.” Id. at *4. If the district court found that the officers ordered Warner to exit the truck, we conclude that this finding is clearly erroneous. It is contradicted by (footnote continued) 17  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 18 initial disregard of officer’s request to put his hands up was relevant to reasonable suspicion); United States v. Harris, 313 F.3d 1228, 1236 (10th Cir. 2002) (defendant’s failure to comply with officer’s request that he take his hands out of his pockets contributed to reasonable suspicion that defendant was armed and dangerous). E. The Totality of the Circumstances Our task now is to decide whether, though insufficient individually, the totality of these circumstances gave Sergeant Romero and Officer Gonzalez a “‘particularized and objective basis for suspecting’ [Warner] of criminal activity.” Daniels, 101 F.4th at 776 (quoting Cortez, 449 U.S. at 417). We conclude that it did. To recap: The officers here responded to a reliable call for service from a store employee about a suspicious person. The caller reported that this person had waited for all other customers to leave the store before entering with what looked like a Taser. The officers arrived around the time the store was closing; the store’s employees were visibly frightened and identified Warner as the person who prompted the call. The truck Warner was in was the only civilian vehicle in the parking lot. It was dark, and the store was in a fairly high-crime area that had experienced several robberies. As the officers approached the truck, they saw an AR-style rifle and a knife within his reach. Warner the footage from Sergeant Romero’s lapel camera, which recorded the entire stop and shows that the officers never ordered Warner to exit the truck. 18  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 19 disregarded the officers’ initial commands to stay in the truck and put his hands on the dashboard, instead stepping from the truck and raising his hands as ordered to do so. We agree with Warner that a reasonable officer in these circumstances may have doubts about whether Warner had intended to engage in criminal activity at or outside the store. But we don’t think that this uncertainty made Sergeant Romero’s and Officer Gonzalez’s conduct unreasonable. See Johnson, 364 F.3d at 1194. The call, the employees’ visible fear and identification of Warner, the weapons, and Warner’s noncompliance were all objective indicators of possible criminal activity that were particular to Warner. And the time of day and the fairly high-crime nature of the area made it even more likely that criminal activity was afoot. This case is made difficult by the fact that there are “innocent explanation[s]” for each of the government’s reasonable-suspicion factors, and “some factors are more probative than others.” United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 277 (2022). But officers “need not rule out the possibility of innocent conduct” to determine that reasonable suspicion exists, id., and reasonable suspicion is not “an onerous standard,” United States v. Simpson, 609 F.3d 1140, 1153 (10th Cir. 2010). This is one of those cases where the “whole picture” is greater than the sum of its parts. Daniels, 101 F.4th at 776 (cleaned up). 19  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 20 Though it described many of the foregoing factors in the background section of its order, the district court’s analysis of reasonable suspicion was brief. In sum, it concluded there was no reasonable suspicion of criminal activity because “a call about a suspicious person who may have had a Taser” and who had a firearm in his vehicle “is not enough.” Warner, 2025 WL 3002933, at *4. That may be true, but here, the officers knew more. The court erred by failing to consider the totality of the circumstances, as the case law requires. 9 In some ways, the facts here resemble those in Terry v. Ohio—the case in which the Supreme Court first articulated the framework for determining whether a stop based on reasonable suspicion complied with the Fourth Amendment. 392 U.S. 1. There, an experienced plainclothes officer was patrolling in downtown Cleveland in the afternoon when he saw two men The district court also seemed to suggest that reasonable suspicion was 9 lacking in part because the officers didn’t suspect that Warner had committed or was about to commit a particular crime. See Warner, 2025 WL 3002933, at *4 (highlighting that the government “conceded that [the officers] did not suspect a crime, but instead that they were merely investigating”). This view is mistaken. Reasonable suspicion doesn’t require suspicion of a particular criminal offense. See United States v. Guardado, 699 F.3d 1220, 1225 (10th Cir. 2012) (“Direct evidence of a specific, particular crime is unnecessary [for reasonable suspicion].” (cleaned up)). Indeed, the “Supreme Court has often spoken of the wrongdoing itself in general terms.” United States v. Conner, 699 F.3d 1225, 1231 (10th Cir. 2012) (cleaned up). And again, because the reasonable-suspicion inquiry is objective, it is irrelevant whether these officers had a particular crime in mind when they detained Warner. See Terry, 392 U.S. at 21–22 (“[I]t is imperative that the facts [supporting reasonable suspicion] be judged against an objective standard.”). 20  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 21 alternating walking up and down the street, peering into a jewelry store window as they passed. Id. at 5–6. A third man joined them, the group had a brief conversation, and then the third man left. Id. at 6. A few minutes later, the first two men followed behind the third. Id. Concerned that the men were preparing to rob the store and might be armed, the officer caught up to all three of them, identified himself as a police officer, and asked for their names. Id. at 6–7. After they “mumbled” a response, the officer spun one of the men around, patted his breast pocket, and found a pistol. Id. at 7. The Supreme Court reasoned that though each of the men’s actions was “perhaps innocent in itself,” they “warranted further investigation” when taken together. Id. at 22– 23. So the Court held that the officer had the reasonable suspicion necessary to lawfully stop the men. Id. at 27–28, 30–31. As in Terry, though each of Warner’s actions could have been innocent, they appear much less so in the aggregate. See id. at 22–23. Indeed, some of the facts here—such as the late hour of the stop and the officers’ knowledge that Warner was armed—are much more probative of reasonable suspicion than those in Terry. See id. at 5 (stop occurred at 2:30 in the afternoon and officer merely “feared” the men had a gun). For these reasons, the district court erred when it concluded that the officers lacked reasonable suspicion to stop Warner. 21  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date Filed: 10/22/2026 Page: 22 II. The officers’ show of force was reasonable under the circumstances and did not transform the stop into an arrest requiring probable cause. In the alternative, Warner argues that the nature of the officers’ conduct during the stop exceeded what reasonable suspicion could justify. He contends the encounter was instead a de facto arrest requiring probable cause. Warner did not challenge the scope of the stop below, and because the district court found reasonable suspicion lacking, it did not address the issue. So we choose to consider the argument for the first time here, and we find it unpersuasive. To comport with the Fourth Amendment, a stop justified by reasonable suspicion must also be “reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.” Madrid, 713 F.3d at 1256 (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 20). Because reasonable suspicion requires only “some minimal level of objective justification,” Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 7 (cleaned up), often only “de minim[i]s intrusions” are reasonable, United States v. Melendez- Garcia, 28 F.3d 1046, 1052 (10th Cir. 1994). But we also don’t require police officers “to take unnecessary risks in performing their duties.” Id. at 1051 (quoting United States v. Perdue, 8 F.3d 1455, 1462 (10th Cir. 1993)). So officers are allowed to take reasonable steps “to protect their personal safety and to maintain the status quo” during a stop. Id. at 1051 (quoting Perdue, 8 F.3d at 1462). Our touchstone when assessing the scope of a stop is, again, reasonableness. If an officer’s conduct “exceed[s] what is reasonably necessary 22  Appellate Case: 25-2149 Document: 40-1 Date File