United States of America v. Emanuel Dameron

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-3291
U NITED S TATES OF A MERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
EMANUEL DAMERON ,
Defendant-Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 1:18-cr-00815-1 — Virginia M. Kendall, Judge.
____________________
A RGUED A PRIL 23, 2024 — DECIDED M AY 31, 2024
____________________
Before EASTERBROOK, S CUDDER , and K IRSCH , Circuit Judges.
S CUDDER , Circuit Judge. Charged in federal court with pos-
sessing a firearm as a felon, Emanuel Dameron moved to sup-
press the firearm and other evidence gathered when police
officers stopped and frisked him while aboard a public bus in
Chicago. The district court denied Dameron’s motion, and a
jury found him guilty at trial. On appeal Dameron renews his
contention that the police’s search of him aboard the bus vio-
lated the Fourth Amendment and, in particular, the standards

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2 No. 22-3291
announced in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). We disagree and
affirm.
I
On July 5, 2018, a Chicago police officer who was viewing
a live video feed from a pole camera spotted Dameron milling
about near the intersection of 61st Street and South Martin Lu-
ther King Jr. Drive. At first Dameron was with a small group
while standing in front of a residential building. But then he
began walking down the sidewalk, at which point the officer
saw an “L-shaped object” that resembled a gun in Dameron’s
waistband. The officer relayed his observations to a tactical
team positioned nearby.
As the tactical team prepared to respond to the location,
Dameron boarded a city bus. The responding officers reacted
by stopping the bus, boarding, and approaching Dameron.
An officer promptly patted down Dameron and recovered a
gun from his waistband. Upon being arrested, Dameron
stated that he had the gun for protection. In time a federal in-
dictment followed, alleging a violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 922(g)(1).
Dameron filed a motion to suppress the gun and his state-
ment to the police, contending that the officers had no more
than a hunch—and not the reasonable suspicion required by
Terry—that he possessed a firearm.
The district court held an evidentiary hearing, received the
video footage into evidence, and heard testimony from the of-
ficer who operated the pole camera. The officer testified that
he was familiar with the neighborhood in which the arrest
took place, had monitored it for 18 months, and knew there
had been “a lot of gang and narcotic activity as well as

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No. 22-3291 3
shootings” in this part of the city. The officer added that, on
the day of the arrest, he observed an “L-shaped object” tucked
in Dameron’s waistband underneath his shirt. The officer be-
lieved the object was a gun, explaining that on multiple prior
occasions he had seen similar objects that turned out to be
guns.
An officer from the tactical team also testified. He too ex-
plained that the neighborhood was “a well-known docu-
mented gang and narcotics location” and the site of “an ongo-
ing rival gang conflict … which results in several people be-
ing shot and killed every year.” The officer then explained
how the tactical team, in response to the observations from
the pole camera operator, stopped the bus, frisked Dameron,
and recovered the gun.
The district court denied Dameron’s motion to suppress,
concluding that the combination of the plainly visible L-
shaped bulge in Dameron’s waistband and his presence in a
high-crime area generated reasonable suspicion to justify the
Terry stop. A jury later found Dameron guilty of possessing a
firearm as a felon, and the district court sentenced him to 110
months’ imprisonment.
II
The parties devote much of their briefing to volleying over
an argument never presented to the district court. Dameron
observes that Illinois permits the concealed carrying of fire-
arms and from there contends that police had no way of
knowing from the pole camera footage alone whether he was
an authorized license holder—a circumstance that would ne-
gate any reasonable suspicion that he unlawfully possessed a
firearm. In Dameron’s view, then, the appeal requires us to

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4 No. 22-3291
decide how the Second Amendment (in light of District of Co-
lumbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) and New York State Rifle &
Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022)) interfaces with the
Fourth Amendment (and Terry’s reasonable suspicion stand-
ard) when it comes to police use of pole camera and like tech-
nology to detect criminal activity in public places.
We decline the invitation, as Dameron never presented
this argument to the district court. Regardless, the appeal
lends itself to resolution on the narrow and straightforward
ground that the police’s search of Dameron occurred on and
after he boarded a public bus. That fact is significant because
the Illinois Concealed Carry Act is clear that a license holder
“shall not knowingly carry a firearm on or into … [a]ny bus,
train, or form of transportation paid for in whole or in part
with public funds.” 430 ILCS 66/65(a)(8); see also Chi. Trans.
Bd., Ill., Ordinance 016-110 (Sept. 14, 2016) (prohibiting gun
possession on public transit); 720 ILCS 5/24-1(a)(4) (prohibit-
ing gun possession “in any vehicle” when not in accordance
with 430 ILCS 66/1 et seq.).
So, even if the officers were required to suppose that
Dameron was the holder of a concealed-carry license—some-
thing we do not decide—his boarding the bus changed things.
At that point, officers, informed as they were about the pole-
camera observations, had reasonable suspicion to believe
Dameron had violated the law. And their ensuing pat-down
search of Dameron did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
See Terry, 392 U.S. at 27–28 (explaining that a reasonable belief
that a suspect is armed authorizes a limited pat-down search
for weapons).
In the final analysis, then, we AFFIRM and leave for an-
other day the sure-to-come challenging questions about how

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No. 22-3291 5
Second Amendment standards after Heller and Bruen interact
with applications of Terry on facts not far from those pre-
sented here.

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