Search and seizure – Reasonable suspicion – Anonymous tip

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Where a defendant was arrested after Boston police received an anonymous tip from a private citizen who purportedly witnessed a person waving a firearm while walking on a public way in broad daylight, the allowance of his motion to suppress should be affirmed because the reliability of the anonymous tip was not established and the tip did not describe criminal activity.

“The Commonwealth filed this interlocutory appeal from an order allowing the motion to suppress of the defendant, Luis Morales. The defendant was arrested after Boston police received an anonymous tip from a private citizen who purportedly witnessed a person waving a firearm while walking on a public way in broad daylight. On appeal, the Commonwealth argues that the motion judge erred by failing to conclude (1) that the witness’s tip was reliable; and (2) that the tip was sufficient to furnish the police with reasonable suspicion that the defendant was unlawfully possessing a firearm and using it in a threatening manner. We affirm. …

“Here, the motion judge found that the anonymous witness’s basis of knowledge was adequately established because the witness saw the person with the firearm firsthand and gave a detailed description of the person to the dispatcher. However, because the police corroborated only innocent details that were observable by any bystander, and because the tip did not provide any predictive details of the person’s behavior or of any criminal activity that was about to occur, the motion judge 7 concluded that the Commonwealth could not establish that the witness’s tip was sufficiently reliable, and therefore the tip could not supply the police with reasonable suspicion necessary to stop the defendant. We now address the Commonwealth’s arguments regarding the reliability of the tip. …

“Here, as the motion judge noted, although the caller ‘was made aware that the 911 call was being recorded, … [t]here is no evidence that the anonymous caller in this case knew that her phone number could be traced at the time she made the report concerning the individual with the firearm.’ … Additionally, while the Commonwealth asserts that after receiving the second call the witness then ‘knew that the police had identified her as the initial caller and that she had made herself traceable and available to the police,’ she said nothing about a gun in the second call and specifically declined to meet with officers. Furthermore, nothing in the record suggests that during the second call the witness was made aware that the police had obtained any information, other than the phone number she used to call 911, that would place her anonymity at risk. … Notably, the witness did not supply the dispatcher with any identifying information during either call or offer to make herself available to police in any other way and elected to remain anonymous. … Thus, the motion judge did not err in evaluating the tip as one that was made from an anonymous source. …

“Addressing the judge’s conclusion that the tip, even if reliable, did not create reasonable suspicion that a crime was being or about to be committed, the Commonwealth contends that the tip alone furnished the police with reasonable suspicion that the person was illegally possessing a firearm or ‘that the suspect’s handling of the firearm posed a public threat.’ Specifically, the Commonwealth asserts that the witness’s observations that the person wore a mask, carried the firearm in a backpack on the front of his body, and removed the firearm from the backpack and waved it around were enough to supply the police with reasonable suspicion of a crime. We are not persuaded. …

“Because the reliability of the anonymous tip was not established and the tip did not describe criminal activity, we are constrained to conclude that the police did not have reasonable suspicion to justify stopping the defendant. The police, of course, could have investigated the tip by, for example, surveilling the defendant or approaching him without immediately seizing him, to see how he would have reacted. We conclude only that police could not command the defendant to ‘stop’ on the basis of the tip alone. Thus, the judge’s order allowing the defendant’s motion to suppress is affirmed.”

Dissenting judge’s comments

Englander, J. “If the majority is correct, the law of reasonable suspicion in this Commonwealth has gone seriously awry. …

“In short, the police here had reasonable suspicion to stop the defendant, and his Federal and State constitutional rights were not violated. To the extent any of our case law suggests otherwise, it is at odds with the basic rules laid down in Terry and its progeny and followed, generally, in our courts as well. I respectfully dissent.”

Commonwealth v. Morales (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-082-25) (21 pages) (Desmond, J.) (Englander, J., dissenting) A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Michael P. Doolin, J., in Superior Court.  Darcy A. Jordan for the commonwealth; Dennis M. Toomey for the defendant (Docket Nio. 24-P-784) (Nov. 12, 2025).

Click here to read the full text of the opinion.