Fareed N. Hayat, an individual v. SGT. CASEY DIAZ, BROOKE DOLAN, NATHAN LENHART, individually

PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 25-1235
FAREED N. HAYAT, an individual,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
SGT. CASEY DIAZ, BROOKE DOLAN, NATHAN LENHART, individually and
in official capacity; MARCUS G. JONES, in official capacity; MONTGOMERY
COUNTY, MARYLAND, a municipal entity; NICOLE MIN, individually and in
official capacity,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Greenbelt.
Lydia Kay Griggsby, District Judge. (8:20-cv-02994-LKG)
Argued: May 8, 2026 Decided: August 20, 2026
Before WILKINSON, NIEMEYER, and BENJAMIN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Niemeyer wrote the opinion, in which Judge
Wilkinson joined. Judge Benjamin wrote a dissenting opinion.
ARGUED: Kylie O’Donnell, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER,
Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Aaron Ramirez, OFFICE OF THE COUNTY
ATTORNEY, Rockville, Maryland, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Aderson B. François,
Laila Ahmed, Student Counsel, Thomas Stanley-Becker, Student Counsel, Yisroel
Margolin, Student Counsel, Douglas Wickman, Student Counsel, Civil Rights Clinic,
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. John

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P. Markovs, County Attorney, Edward B. Lattner, Deputy County Attorney, Kristen J.
Nunley, Assistant County Attorney, OFFICE OF THE COUNTY ATTORNEY, Rockville,
Maryland, for Appellees.

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NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:
After the Emergency Communications Center in Montgomery County, Maryland,
issued a priority call to Montgomery County police officers to “respond priority for a
kidnapping” after a witness saw someone put three children into the trunk of a vehicle, the
officers traced the driver to Fareed Hayat, who lived nearby in Silver Spring. When
officers approached Hayat, who was standing on the porch of his house with his wife, he
acted suspiciously, stating that there was “no kidnapping here,” cutting off a conversation
between his wife and the officers, and attempting to retreat into his home, telling them,
“You cannot come into our house.” After the officers initiated a Terry stop∗ and prevented
Hayat from shutting the door, they entered into the front hall of the house to handcuff Hayat
and complete their investigation. They determined that Hayat had not kidnapped the
children and released him.
Hayat commenced this action against the police officers, the Chief of Police, and
Montgomery County under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the defendants violated his
Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures, his Fourteenth Amendment
right to familial privacy, his federal property rights under § 1982, and his rights under state
constitutional and tort law. The district court granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss
and for summary judgment, ruling that the officers had a reasonable articulable suspicion
of child kidnapping to justify their initiation of a Terry stop before Hayat retreated into his
house; that the officers were justified in entering the house to complete the Terry stop; and
∗ Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).

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that an additional exigency existed to confirm the welfare of the children in circumstances
where Hayat was “imped[ing] their ability to check” on the children.
For the reasons given herein, we affirm.
I
In the evening of October 22, 2017, the Montgomery County Emergency
Communications Center advised Montgomery County police officers over the radio of a
“respond priority for a kidnapping” near Piney Branch Road and University Boulevard. A
“priority call” is the “highest level of urgency and police response,” and “kidnapping in
progress calls are rare.” The Communications Center explained that the “complainant was
told by another driver that [the other driver] saw someone grab three children and put them
in the trunk of a vehicle.” The complainant provided a description of the suspect as a Black
man and the vehicle as black with Maryland license plate number 6CC8056, which was
headed northbound on University Boulevard toward Wheaton. Police Sergeant Robert
Sheehan responded over the radio that “the car comes back to a 2013 Tesla, to a Black
male, 1 Eastmoor Drive in Silver Spring,” and Officer Jorge Moran added that “Teslas
have rear-facing seats in the trunk, so they might be able to sit there.”
The information reported by the Communications Center was based on a 911 call
from a person who identified himself as “Luis” and who said that he was relaying
information that he had received from an eyewitness, who was shortly thereafter identified
as Edgar Ayala Solano.

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Soon after the emergency dispatch, Officer Moran advised on the air that he had
made in-person contact with Solano, reporting:
I have the original complainant here. He says that he was at the IHOP in
Langley Park, that he saw the Black male open the trunk, yell at the kids, and
then close the trunk, but like I said, they might have possible rear-facing seats
in the trunk that are legal.
As Officer Moran later described this conversation in more detail, Solano, speaking in
Spanish, stated “that he witnessed a gentleman come out, open up a trunk, tie up children
inside, yell at them, and slammed and shut [the trunk] before driving off.” Solano also told
Moran that he believed the children were in danger, which is why he wrote down the tag
of the vehicle and followed it to an intersection, where he attempted to locate a police
officer and where he instructed another citizen, Luis, to call the police.
Sergeant Casey Diaz and Officer Nicole Min responded to the child-kidnapping
dispatch and drove to 1 Eastmoor Drive, Silver Spring, in a marked police cruiser. Before
approaching the residence, Diaz shut off his police cruiser lights and siren to avoid alerting
the subject of their presence. Diaz then led the way, walking up a driveway to the residence
where he observed a Black male and female, later identified as Hayat and his wife,
Norrinda Hayat, standing on the steps.
As Sergeant Diaz and Officer Min — both dressed in uniform — approached the
Hayats, the officers observed that the couple “did not appear surprised by [the officers’]
arrival, and instead, appeared to have anticipated” it. Diaz “found it suspicious” in that the
individuals had not requested police assistance yet were “apparently anticipating police
arrival.” The following conversation then ensued, as recorded by Diaz’s body camera:

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Sgt. Diaz: Hi, how are you doing? Everything okay here?
Hayat: [indiscernible]
Sgt. Diaz: Were you guys just at the IHOP down in Langley Park?
Hayat: What’s the problem?
Sgt. Diaz: We got a call of a kidnapping, or something like that, were you
guys down at the IHOP?
Hayat: There is no kidnapping here, sir.
Sgt. Diaz: What?
Hayat: There is no kidnapping here, sir.
Sgt. Diaz: Okay, well I just need to make sure everybody is ok.
Hayat: Okay . . . how are you going to do that?
Sgt. Diaz: Well, we are talking. We are talking.
Hayat: Everything is ok here.
Sgt. Diaz: Well, I need to check. Are there any kids here?
Hayat: Yes.
Sgt. Diaz: Well, can we see them?
Hayat: You cannot come into our house. We are both lawyers. I am a
professor at the University of Howard, she is a professor at
UDC. This is our home. You do not have a warrant. You are
not coming in our home.
[Overheard in the background] Mrs. Hayat: I am a professor of law.
Sgt. Diaz: Can you come down here for a second?
Hayat: I cannot.
Mrs. Hayat: Can you explain to us what is going on here?

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Sgt. Diaz: Yeah, somebody saw something involving some kids at an
IHOP . . .
At that point, Hayat abruptly cut off their conversation, put his arm around his wife and
ushered her back into the home, and attempted to shut the door, while saying to her,
“Norrinda, walk into our home please. Walk into our home.”
Sergeant Diaz, who had years of experience as an officer and in conducting
interviews, found the circumstances of this encounter especially suspicious. First, after he
told Hayat that there had been a report of a kidnapping and asked him whether he had been
at the IHOP, Hayat did not answer the question. Rather, he responded immediately, “There
is no kidnapping here.” Diaz found this response to be “evasive and showed signs of
deception because [Hayat] never acknowledged whether or not he had been at the IHOP,”
and he “did not act surprised or deny that he had been at the IHOP” once he learned the
investigation was about a kidnapping. Hayat also “avoided” answering the question by
using “his background as a law professor as a deflection.” Diaz further found suspicious
the fact that Hayat stopped his wife from speaking about the incident and ushered her back
into the house. Diaz concluded that Hayat was preventing Mrs. Hayat “from sharing
information she may have had about the children’s welfare” and that Hayat “seemed
particularly concerned about her learning details of the kidnapping report that [Diaz] was
trying to share with her.” Indeed, as Diaz observed, Hayat “became even more agitated
when [Mrs. Hayat] asked [Diaz] to explain what was going on.” Finally, Diaz found it
suspicious that when he “asked to see the children to verify their welfare, [Hayat] became
even more defensive,” relaying his attorney background.

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Sergeant Diaz concluded that he had to “complete [his] investigation and determine
whether a kidnapping ha[d] occurred” and ascertain “the welfare of the children.” He also
concluded it was important for him to pursue his suspicion that Mrs. Hayat might “have
some information as to what happened at the IHOP, . . . [and] the welfare of the children
involved.”
When Hayat cut off Mrs. Hayat’s attempt to enter the conversation and ushered her
back into the house, Hayat attempted to close the door. Sergeant Diaz, however, prevented
the door from being closed and issued several commands to Hayat to open the door. Officer
Min assisted Diaz in attempting to open the door, as Hayat physically resisted by pushing
back against the door and yelling, “You are not allowed in our house.” While Diaz and
Min were pushing open the door, Officers Nathan Lenhart and Brooke Dolan arrived at the
scene and assisted in pushing the door open and gaining entry into the vestibule of Hayat’s
house. Hayat yelled at the officers, repeatedly stating that he was a law professor and that
they could not be in his home.
After the officers entered the home and Hayat continued to physically resist them,
they placed him in handcuffs. Hayat sustained a bloody lip, but there are no allegations
that officers otherwise physically assaulted him. After Hayat had calmed down, officers
removed the handcuffs and allowed him to remain seated in the house and to use his cell
phone. Mrs. Hayat eventually allowed Officer Dolan to observe the children to confirm
that they were okay. Sergeant Diaz spoke with Hayat’s brother, who had also arrived at
the house, and the brother advised Diaz that the children inside the home were either the
Hayats’ children or his (the brother’s) children and that they therefore belonged at the

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residence. The officers did not conduct a search of the house but rather concluded, after
additional conversations, that a kidnapping had not occurred and departed from the house.
Hayat commenced this action against the four police officers who had entered his
home, the Chief of Police, and Montgomery County, alleging federal and state
constitutional claims, a federal statutory claim, and state tort claims. After the district court
dismissed most of the claims, it granted the defendants summary judgment on those that
remained. With regard to Hayat’s Fourth Amendment claim — the only claim on appeal
— the district court concluded that the officers had lawfully entered the Hayats’ house
pursuant to a Terry stop that the officers had begun outside the house. The court explained
that the officers had a reasonable articulable suspicion involving the kidnapping of children
before they entered into the house and that “a suspect’s retreat into their home [could not]
thwart a Terry stop.” The court also noted that the law enforcement officers were justified
in entering a home on the exigency of preventing serious injury and “to check on the
welfare of the children.”
From the district court’s judgment dated February 12, 2025, Hayat filed this appeal,
challenging only the district court’s denial of his Fourth Amendment claim.
II
Hayat contends that the Montgomery County police officers violated his Fourth
Amendment rights when investigating the kidnapping report. He argues that the officers
did not have a reasonable articulable suspicion to conduct a Terry stop; that, in any event,
no Terry stop was conducted outside his home because he was first seized inside his home;

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that even if the Terry stop had been conducted outside his home, officers could not have
entered his home and continued the Terry stop inside the home without a warrant; and that
exigent circumstances did not justify the officers’ entry into his home.
The applicable foundational principles are not disputed. The Fourth Amendment
provides, as relevant here, “The right of the people to be secure in their . . . houses . . .
against unreasonable . . . seizures, shall not be violated.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. And
consistent with that language, the Supreme Court has held that “the Fourth Amendment
has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house. Absent exigent circumstances,
that threshold may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant.” Payton v. New York,
445 U.S. 573, 590 (1980). Thus, at its core, the Fourth Amendment guarantees a person
the right “to retreat into his [or her] own home and there be free from unreasonable
governmental intrusion.” Case v. Montana, 607 U.S. 107, 113 (2026) (quoting Caniglia v.
Strom, 593 U.S. 194, 198 (2021)). Such an intrusion without a warrant is “presumptively
unreasonable.” Payton, 445 U.S. at 586.
But the requirement of a warrant is subject to exceptions for exigencies, among them
when an officer has “an objectively reasonable basis for believing” that someone inside
needs emergency assistance, is “seriously injured,” or is “imminently threatened with such
injury,” Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 400 (2006); see also Michigan v. Fisher,
558 U.S. 45, 47 (2009) (per curiam), or when a defendant retreats into his home to “thwart
an otherwise proper arrest” that had been set in motion, United States v. Santana, 427 U.S.
38, 42 (1976); see also Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 298–99 (1967).

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It is also now well established that, outside the home, police officers do not violate
the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable seizures if they conduct a brief,
investigative stop of a person when they have a reasonable articulable suspicion “that
criminal activity may be afoot.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968). Such a stop is, to
be sure, a “seizure” of the person because the officers, “by means of physical force or show
of authority, ha[ve] in some way restrained the liberty” of the person, id. at 19 n.16, but it
is justified by the public interest in law enforcement.
With these fundamental principles, we must determine, in response to Hayat’s
arguments, (1) whether the police officers had a reasonable articulable suspicion that a
kidnapping may have taken place; (2) whether officers initiated a Terry stop outside of
Hayat’s home; and (3) whether, in the circumstances where the first two are true, the
officers were justified in entering Hayat’s home without a warrant to complete the Terry
stop. Hayat also argues (4) that no exigent circumstances were present. We take Hayat’s
arguments in order.
A
Hayat contends first that Sergeant Diaz did not have a “reasonable articulable
suspicion” that criminal activity may have been afoot when he confronted Hayat and
therefore that any purported Terry stop was unjustified.
“Reasonable suspicion” requires a showing that an objectively reasonable officer
would have had a “particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person
stopped of criminal activity.” Navarette v. California, 572 U.S. 393, 396 (2014) (cleaned

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up). The police officer “must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken
together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant [the] intrusion.”
Terry, 392 U.S. at 21. The inquiry must consider “the totality of the circumstances.”
Navarette, 572 U.S. at 397 (cleaned up). While the officer “must be able to articulate more
than an ‘inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or “hunch”’ of criminal activity,” Illinois
v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123–24 (2000) (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 27), what he must
show is “considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the evidence,”
and “obviously less” than is necessary for probable cause, United States v. Sokolow,
490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989). In short, the officer “bears the burden of proving that reasonable
suspicion justified a warrantless seizure.” United States v. Kehoe, 893 F.3d 232, 237 (4th
Cir. 2018).
We conclude that the facts known to Sergeant Diaz were more than sufficient to
create a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity involving Hayat may have been afoot
and that therefore a Terry stop of him was justified.
First, Montgomery County police officers, including Sergeant Diaz, received a
dispatch of a child kidnapping, which was an unusual and serious crime, and the dispatch
was prompted by a 911 call received from a person named “Luis,” who was relaying an
eyewitness’s account of the purportedly criminal conduct. Luis reported that Solano, the
eyewitness, “saw someone grab three children and put them in the trunk of a vehicle” and
that the “someone” was a Black male, driving a black Tesla with a Maryland license plate
number 6CC8056.

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Second, the license plate number was linked to a 2013 Tesla vehicle, owned by
Fareed Hayat, a Black male, living nearby at 1 Eastmoor Drive in Silver Spring. Officer
Moran shared over the radio that some Teslas have rear-facing seats in the trunk.
Third, in response to the dispatch, Officer Moran was able to find and interview
Solano and thus reported over the radio:
I have the original complainant here. He says that he was at the IHOP in
Langley Park, that he saw the black male open the trunk, yell at the kids, and
then close the trunk, but like I said, they might have possible rear-facing seats
in the trunk that are legal.
Solano also advised Officer Moran that, based on his observations, he had believed that the
children were in danger, prompting him to write down the tag of the vehicle and follow it
to an intersection, where he attempted to locate an officer. He stated that he then instructed
Luis to call the police.
Fourth, upon visiting the address provided over the radio, Sergeant Diaz and Officer
Min were surprised to see, as they approached the house, that a Black male and female
(Hayat and Mrs. Hayat) were standing on the porch and seemed unsurprised by their
arrival, indeed acting as if they were “anticipating” it.
Fifth, when the officers questioned Hayat about the child kidnapping, Hayat was
unresponsive, refusing to confirm whether he had been at the IHOP, refusing to let officers
see the children in the house, and refusing to let his wife speak to the police, ending the
encounter abruptly with an attempt to retreat into his house.
Sixth, Sergeant Diaz concluded, based on his personal experience — having worked
for 12 years as a police officer with specialized training in conducting interviews and

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interrogations, including “recognizing the signs of deception,” and having conducted more
than 200 interviews during those years — that his interchange with Hayat had not dispelled
his initial suspicion but instead heightened it. Sergeant Diaz explained his reasons in detail,
as follows:
(1) Hayat “matched the limited description of the subject provided by the caller” in
that he was a Black male at the address to which the Tesla was registered;
(2) The Hayats “did not appear surprised” by his arrival and “appeared to have
anticipated” it despite not having called for police and Sergeant Diaz having
switched off his lights and siren;
(3) Hayat “did not act surprised” by the report of a kidnapping and “avoided”
answering whether he had been at the IHOP;
(4) Hayat used his status as a law professor to “deflect[]” Sergeant Diaz’s questions;
(5) Hayat confirmed that there were children in the house but denied Sergeant
Diaz’s request to see them;
(6) Hayat proactively told Sergeant Diaz that he could not enter the home, despite
Diaz not having requested permission to do so; and
(7) When Mrs. Hayat asked Sergeant Diaz to explain the situation and Diaz began
conversing with her, Hayat “seemed particularly concerned” about Mrs. Hayat’s
“learning details of the kidnapping report that [Diaz] was trying to share with
her,” and Hayat prevented her from sharing information “she may have had
about the children’s welfare” by “abruptly” and “suddenly” ending the

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conversation, and beginning to close the door with himself, Mrs. Hayat, and the
children inside.
Hayat argues nonetheless that the tip on which the dispatch of child kidnapping
depended was unreliable and uncorroborated, undermining the reasonableness of Sergeant
Diaz’s suspicion. It is true that a tip “must contain sufficient ‘indicia of reliability’ to
enable officers to evaluate the veracity of the tip before stopping whomever the tip
identifies.” United States v. Brown, 401 F.3d 588, 596 (4th Cir. 2005) (quoting Alabama
v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 330 (1990)); Navarette, 572 U.S. at 397. But the tip in this case
bore nearly every indicum of reliability identified by the Supreme Court in Navarette as
sufficient.
In Navarette, the Court highlighted the following factors as indicating reliability:
(1) “officers’ corroboration of certain details;” (2) a tip that alleges an eyewitness account
of the alleged crime; (3) a contemporaneous tip, which is “especially reliable;” and (4) “the
caller’s use of the 911 emergency system,” because “[a] 911 call has some features that
allow for identifying and tracing callers, and thus provide some safeguards against making
false reports with immunity.” Id. at 398–400. The Court then applied those factors to its
case, explaining that “[b]y reporting that she had been run off the road by a specific vehicle
— a silver Ford F-150 pickup, license plate 8D94925, . . . the tipster necessarily claimed
eyewitness knowledge of the alleged dangerous driving,” which lent “significant support
to the tip’s reliability.” Id. at 399. In addition, circumstances indicated that she had
“reported the incident soon after she was run off the road,” thus constituting
contemporaneous reporting. Id.

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The tip here had all the same indicia of reliability as in Navarette. The tipster, Luis,
made a 911 call reporting that Solano had told him to call the police after Solano had
witnessed a man grabbing three children and putting them in the trunk of a vehicle. Luis
passed on a description of the driver, the vehicle, the license plate number, and the travel
direction. Additionally, Officer Moran was then able to locate and interview Solano shortly
after the incident, and Solano described the events consistent with Luis’s initial report.
Finally, the license plate number was immediately traced to a man and a vehicle fitting the
descriptions given by the tipsters. Thus, in effect, a police officer corroborated Luis’s tip
through an almost contemporaneous person-to-person interview with the actual
eyewitness. We conclude therefore that the tips here were reliable and amply met the
standard set forth in Navarette. Accord United States v. Mitchell, 963 F.3d 385, 394 (4th
Cir. 2020).
Hayat also challenges Sergeant Diaz’s characterizations of his interaction with
Hayat, claiming that he, Hayat, was calm, polite, and not suspicious. But Sergeant Diaz
saw things differently based on his years of training and experience. Moreover, after
reading the transcript of the conversation, which Hayat does not dispute, and reviewing the
body camera videos, we agree with Diaz’s characterization of what actually took place.
Indeed, Hayat has challenged neither the video nor the transcription. And it is these
objective data that inform us of what a reasonable officer would have concluded. See
Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 124–25.
Finally, Hayat argues that the fact that he told Sergeant Diaz there had been “no
kidnapping here” should have “dispel[led] the reasonable suspicion” of a kidnapping.

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Navarette, 572 U.S. at 403. But it would be “hardly surprising that the appearance of” a
police officer questioning a suspect about a kidnapping would “inspire” that suspect to
deny involvement in the crime. Id. Moreover, the whole purpose of a temporary stop
under Terry is to permit a police officer to “detain [a suspect] to resolve [any] ambiguity”
in the suspect’s conduct. Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 125 (citing Terry, 392 U.S. at 30).
In short, Solano reported having witnessed events that suggested that a child
kidnapping had taken place, multiple pieces of corroborated information linked Hayat to
the incident, and Sergeant Diaz was unable to dispel the suspicion in his conversation with
Hayat. Rather, the conversation heightened Diaz’s suspicion. In the totality of these
circumstances, we conclude that Diaz had reasonable articulable suspicion that criminal
activity may have been afoot to justify a Terry stop of Hayat.
Had Sergeant Diaz walked away after Hayat retreated into his house, Diaz would
not have known whether he was releasing a vile criminal or an innocent person. Moreover,
had he walked away and had Hayat indeed been engaged in child kidnapping, the public,
as well as the victims, would justifiably have been outraged by the police conduct.
Common sense would have dictated that Diaz had a reasonable suspicion that criminal
activity was afoot and yet he did not do his duty to dispel that suspicion. See Mora v. City
of Gaithersburg, 519 F.3d 216, 222 (4th Cir. 2008) (noting that courts must “approach the
Fourth Amendment . . . with at least some measure of pragmatism”). “[W]here a police
officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his
experience that criminal activity may be afoot,” he may temporarily seize the person to

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dispel his suspicion, Terry, 392 U.S. at 30, and the public rightfully expects that law
enforcement officers will do so.
At bottom, we reject Hayat’s argument that Sergeant Diaz and the other officers
investigating the kidnapping report did not have the proper level of suspicion to conduct a
Terry stop.
B
Hayat next contends that a Terry stop was not conducted outside his house and that
officers could not have legally entered his house to conduct such a stop. He explains that
“for a Terry stop to occur, there must be, at a minimum, a show of authority such that a
reasonable person would not feel free to go” and that “Sergeant Diaz did not show any such
authority before Professor Hayat reentered his home.” Accordingly, he argues that there
was no seizure by Diaz before Hayat retreated into his home.
To be sure, “[l]aw enforcement officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment’s
prohibition of unreasonable seizures merely by approaching individuals on the street or in
other public places and putting questions to them if they are willing to listen.” United
States v. Drayton, 536 U.S. 194, 200 (2002). And for purposes of the Fourth Amendment,
the Hayats were in a public place as the officers approached them. See, e.g., United States
v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 42 (1976). But if “the police conduct would have communicated
to a reasonable person that he was not at liberty to ignore the police presence and go about
his business,” then the police would have seized him. Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429,
437 (1991) (cleaned up). In sum, “a person is seized by the police and thus entitled to

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challenge the government’s action under the Fourth Amendment when the officer, by
means of physical force or show of authority, terminates or restrains his freedom of
movement through means intentionally applied.” Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249,
254 (2007) (cleaned up).
In this case, Sergeant Diaz’s encounter with Hayat did indeed begin as a voluntary
encounter in a public place. It began simply with Diaz’s asking of questions. But when
Hayat stopped answering questions, told his wife to go inside the home, and then began
retreating into his home, Diaz vocally told the Hayats to stop and physically prevented
them from closing the door, as shown on Diaz’s body camera. As Diaz explained
I believed that children were inside of the residence and were in immediate
threat of serious danger, including serious injury or threat of serious injury.
Therefore, when [Hayat] suddenly attempted to end my investigation and
closed me outside the home with the children inside, I attempted to prevent
[Hayat] from closing the door.
And indeed, Hayat was unable to close the door against the officers, as the officers entered
Hayat’s home and secured Hayat with handcuffs in the vestibule.
Thus, when Sergeant Diaz, as a uniformed police officer, gave verbal commands
and took physical action indicating that the Hayats were not free to disengage, Diaz made
a “show of authority” “sufficient to make it apparent that [Hayat was] not free to ignore
the officer and proceed on his way,” as required to support a seizure. United States v. Gray,
883 F.2d 320, 322 (4th Cir. 1989) (citation omitted); see also Terry, 392 U.S. at 16 (“It
must be recognized that whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his
freedom to walk away, he has ‘seized’ that person”). Thus, before the officers entered
Hayat’s home, they initiated — albeit did not complete — a Terry stop.

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Hayat repeatedly makes the argument that because he was a law professor, he knew
his Fourth Amendment rights and that, with that knowledge, he felt free to leave the
encounter. But this argument fails to recognize that the “seizure” inquiry is not based on
what the suspect felt, but on what a reasonable person would have felt in the circumstances
— an objective standard. See Bostick, 501 U.S. at 437.
C
Hayat also contends that even if a Terry stop had been initiated outside his home, it
could not have been continued into his home without probable cause and a warrant. Of
course, a Terry stop may be conducted when the officer is able to point to reasonable
articulable suspicion that criminal activity may be afoot, and entry into the home may be
justified generally by a warrant issued pursuant to probable cause. Thus, the Terry stop
cannot be a substitute for the probable cause and warrant necessary for entry into a home.
But the issue here is not whether reasonable suspicion can suffice to authorize
officers to enter a home. Rather, it is whether a Terry stop properly initiated outside the
home must end by the suspect’s flight into the home. We conclude that the Constitution
does not provide such exceptional and mechanical protection of the home in the exigent
circumstances where a suspect flees into his home from an ongoing Terry stop and where
children’s welfare may be threatened.
To be sure, in prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures of a person’s house,
the Fourth Amendment protects the privacy and sanctity of the home, and such a search or
seizure in the home without a warrant is presumptively unreasonable. Payton, 445 U.S. at

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585–86. But in exigent circumstances arising from the need to act quickly, such as in the
context of a fleeing suspect, the immediate destruction of evidence, or the protection of
persons at risk of injury, the Court has found entry into the home without a warrant to be
reasonable. See Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 403.
Thus, in circumstances similar to those before us — where the police were informed
that an armed robbery of a cab company had taken place and that a cab driver had followed
the suspect to a home five minutes away, providing the police with a description — the
Supreme Court held that the police “acted reasonably when they entered the house and
began to search for a man of the description they had been given.” Warden v. Hayden,
387 U.S. 294, 298 (1967). The Court explained:
The Fourth Amendment does not require police officers to delay in the course
of an investigation if to do so would gravely endanger their lives or the lives
of others. Speed here was essential, and only a thorough search of the house
for persons and weapons could have ensured that Hayden was the only man
present and that the police had control of all weapons which could be used
against them or to effect an escape.
Id. at 298–99. The Court thus recognized that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit
police, with reliable information, from acting quickly to enter a home without a warrant
when the exigency of quick action so requires.
Applying Warden to similar circumstances in United States v. Santana, the Supreme
Court stated that the “need to act quickly [in the circumstances presented in Santana] [was]
even greater than in [Warden] while the intrusion [was] much less.” 427 U.S. at 42. The
Court nonetheless found Warden to be supportive. In Santana, after an undercover officer
paid Patricia McCafferty for heroin, McCafferty went into the house of “Mom Santana,”

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gave her the money, and brought out the heroin to give to the undercover agent, which she
did while the two were in a car. Id. at 40. After the undercover agent received the heroin,
he arrested McCafferty, who then told him that Mom Santana had the money. Accordingly,
officers returned to Mom Santana’s house and saw her standing in the doorway. Id. They
shouted “police,” showed their badges, entered the house without a warrant, and recovered
the money from Mom Santana. Id. The Supreme Court held that the entry into the house
did not violate the Fourth Amendment under a “hot pursuit” exception. Id. at 42–43.
Defining “hot pursuit” freely, however, the Court recognized that the hot pursuit in Santana
“ended almost as soon as it began,” as the suspect retreated only a few steps into her home.
Id. at 43. But the Court recognized that the officers needed to act quickly, id. at 42–43,
concluding “that a suspect may not defeat an arrest which has been set in motion in a public
place . . . by the expedient of escaping to a private place.” Id. at 43. While the Court
characterized the exception as the “hot pursuit” exception, it noted that in substance it was
similar to the circumstances in Warden, explaining more precisely that the decision in
Warden “was based upon the exigencies of the situation and did not use the term hot pursuit
or even involve a hot pursuit in the sense that that term would normally be understood.”
Id. at 42 n.3 (cleaned up) (emphasis added).
In any event, both Warden and Santana stand for the commonsense proposition that
a person who has become a suspect for criminal activity may not rely on the constitutional
protections of his house to thwart the officers’ attempt to make an arrest.

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Consistent with Warden and Santana, we have held that a Terry stop initiated
outside the home similarly could be completed inside the home without a warrant when the
suspect retreated into the home. As we explained:
In this case, the appellants do not dispute, nor could they, that Officer
Washington was entitled to conduct a Terry stop of Juan once he arrived at
the scene of the Juan/Jessica domestic dispute. Officer Washington
approached Jessica first [and ordered Juan to stand by], but before he had a
chance to question Juan, Juan entered the Rivera apartment. Under these
circumstances, Officer Washington, as well as Officer Trumble, was entitled
to enter the Rivera apartment to conduct the Terry stop inside the Rivera
apartment.
Rivera v. Washington, 57 F. App’x 558, 562 (4th Cir. 2003) (per curiam). While Rivera
was an unpublished opinion, which we do not recognize as binding precedent, we
nonetheless adopt its holding here and conclude that when an officer has reasonable
suspicion that criminal activity is afoot and that the activity involves risk of injury, he may,
to allay his suspicion and the concern for injury, extend his Terry stop of the suspect into
the suspect’s home following the suspect’s retreat.
The principles underlying Warden, Santana, and Rivera apply here. Similar to the
facts in Warden, the police here received reliable information that Hayat was a suspect of
child kidnapping; based on the information they received, they initiated a Terry stop
outside Hayat’s house; and when Hayat attempted to retreat to his house, they continued
the Terry stop inside the house. Because of the need to act quickly, to retain control over
the suspect, and to be able to protect the children alleged to have been kidnapped, the
officers extended the temporary stop into Hayat’s home to where he had fled. This is just

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the type of exigency of which the Warden Court spoke. Indeed, the exigency exception to
the Fourth Amendment is yet broader. As the Supreme Court stated in Brigham City:
Because the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is
“reasonableness,” the warrant requirement is subject to certain exceptions
[that are characterized as exigencies, such as] to fight a fire and investigate
its cause, to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence, . . . to engage in
“hot pursuit” of a fleeing suspect, . . . to render emergency assistance to an
injured occupant or to protect an occupant from imminent injury [and] . . . to
determine whether violence (or threat of violence) has just occurred or is
about to (or soon will) occur.
547 U.S. at 403–04 (citations omitted). In this case, at least two types of exigency were
implicated — the retreat into the home to avoid the continuation of a Terry stop and the
concern for the welfare of allegedly kidnapped children. Accordingly, we reject Hayat’s
argument that the officers should have abandoned their Terry stop and obtained a warrant
before entering his home.
D
Finally, Hayat argues that the Montgomery County police officers did not have a
basis to conclude that exigent circumstances existed to justify their entry into his home
without a warrant. As he states the argument, the police officers “had no objectively
reasonable basis on which to justify an entry based on the emergency aid exception.” He
grounds his argument mainly on the fact that the tip given to the police was not adequately
corroborated and therefore was unreliable.
First, we reject his claim that the tip was unreliable. As we explain above, the
officers had objectively reasonable suspicion that criminal activity involving Hayat may
have been afoot and that the tips they received were reliable.

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In addition, however, Hayat also parses various pieces of information received by
the officers to address their sufficiency, but in doing so he overlooks the totality of the
circumstances. The initial tipster in this case received information from an eyewitness, and
the police were able to corroborate both reports by interviewing the eyewitness almost
contemporaneously about what he had seen transpire. Solano described the vehicle and
the driver, and he specifically provided the vehicle’s license plate number. He also
described the incident as he saw it. The officers did not find him disingenuous or
manipulative, and they concluded that they could not dismiss the report without further
investigation. Clearly, “reasonable suspicion need not rule out the possibility of innocent
conduct.” Navarette, 572 U.S. at 403 (cleaned up). Moreover, child kidnapping is not a
crime about which to guess wrong, and when circumstances indicate that such a crime
might be taking place, officers could legitimately be concerned about the safety and welfare
of the children involved. Cf. Pleasants v. Town of Louisa, 524 F. App’x 891, 896 n.3 (4th
Cir. 2013) (where child welfare is concerned, “that a police officer errs on the side of
believing a statement and subsequently checking on the child is often the preferable
choice”).
The officers initially began their investigation by identifying the driver, the vehicle,
and the address connected to them. After finding the address linked to the vehicle, they
confronted Hayat with straightforward questions designed to dispel their concerns. But
Hayat immediately thwarted their efforts, refusing to answer easy questions and then
attempting to retreat into his house, which the officers forcefully attempted to prevent. In
these circumstances, the officers’ suspicion was legitimately heightened. They did not

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know whether Hayat was trying to escape or do something to the children. And if the
officers had abandoned their efforts, as Hayat would have had them do to get a warrant, an
actual perpetrator could well have escaped with the children.
Thus, the reasonable suspicion and the nature of the crime created circumstances
that justified the officers’ completion of their Terry stop in Hayat’s house and checking on
the children. “Under the circumstances of this case, the exigencies of the situation made
[the] course imperative.” Warden, 387 U.S. at 298 (cleaned up).
* * *
Why Hayat refused to cooperate with police officers when first being questioned to
dispel their concerns is not apparent but curious, and the resulting engagement in Hayat’s
home was unfortunate in light of the investigation’s ultimate conclusion that Hayat was not
in fact engaged in child kidnapping. In the circumstances, however, we conclude that
Hayat’s Fourth Amendment rights were not violated.
AFFIRMED

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D E ANDREA GIST BENJAMIN, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
The majority mischaracterizes a consensual encounter between Fareed Hayat and
Officer Casey Diaz on the porch of Hayat’s home. In doing so, it abridges Hayat’s right to
terminate such an encounter, refuse police questioning, and retreat into his home by
converting that encounter into an investigative detention. The majority takes it a step
further by creating a rule that an incomplete Terry stop is enough to permit police officers
to enter an individual’s home—one that stands in blatant conflict with minimum
protections of the Fourth Amendment. Justice Scalia warned us that the warrant
requirement was “riddled with exceptions [such] that it was basically unrecognizable” and
the majority’s decision today manufactures another exception complicating the warrant
requirement further. California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 582 (1991) (Scalia, J.,
concurring in the judgment). Because privacy protections are most heightened in the home,
an area profoundly safeguarded by the Fourth Amendment, I respectfully dissent.
I. Background
An anonymous caller, referred to as Luis, called in to the Montgomery County
Emergency Communications Center (“ECC”) to report that he “was told by another driver
that he saw someone grab three children and put them in the trunk of a vehicle” outside an
IHOP in Silver Spring, Maryland. ECC Audio, at 00:00:29-00:00:36.1 But because Luis
1 Volume II of the joint appendix contains an audio file of the emergency dispatch
call to MCPD officers. It is cited as ECC Audio, at 00:00:00-00:00:00.

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was only “told about [the] kidnapping” secondhand, J.A. 462, he told the ECC dispatcher
that he did not see anything.3
The ECC dispatcher alerted Montogomery County Police Department (“MCPD”)
officers to “respond priority for a kidnapping.” ECC Audio, at 00:00:18-00:00:28. ECC
noted the report was for “[a] suspect vehicle, black, [license plate number], driven by a
black male, northbound university towards Wheaton, unknown location in route.” ECC
Audio, at 00:01:19-00:01:32.
MCPD Officer Robert Sheehan ultimately traced the license plate “to a 2013 Tesla,
[registered] to a black male [at] 1 Eastmoor Drive in Silver Spring.” ECC Audio, at
00:02:03-00:02:10. MCPD Officer Jorge Moran sought to make in-person contact with
Edgar Ayala Solano, who originally told Luis what he witnessed. On his way to the IHOP,
Moran advised all officers on the dispatch line that “Tesla’s have rear-facing seats in the
trunk, so they might be able to sit there.” ECC Audio, at 00:02:40-00:02:47. Solano
detailed to Moran that he was parked at the IHOP when “he observed the rear hatch of a
black door sedan open” and that “2 children [were] strapped in[] the car.” J.A. 42. Moran
informed the dispatch line that Solano “was at the IHOP in Langley Park, that he saw the
2 Citations to “J.A.” refer to the joint appendix filed by the parties. The J.A. contains
the record on appeal from the lower court. Page numbers for citations to the J.A. utilize
the “J.A.” numbering at the bottom of the page on each document.
3 Later in his call to ECC, Luis advised that he was following the suspect vehicle
on University Boulevard E, and that the vehicle was a “a white range rover with tinted
windows” driven by “a black male.” J.A. 42. When MCPD Officer Craig Rosia located
Luis and the white Range Rover, Luis immediately drove off because he “did not wish to
be seen.” Id. Luis provided no information after this point but Rosia concluded there were
no children in the white Range Rover.

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black male open the trunk, yell at the kids, and then close the trunk, but like [he] said, they
might have possible rear-facing seats in the trunk that are legal.” ECC Audio, at 00:04:28-
00:04:50.4
Officers responded to 1 Eastmoor Drive, the registered address for the suspect
vehicle. Diaz arrived first. Diaz turned his patrol lights and sirens off shortly before he
parked outside of the home on the street. As Diaz approached the home, only a white
BMW SUV was parked in the driveway. Bodycam Footage, at 00:38.5 There was no black
Tesla in sight. As Diaz walked up the driveway, he was met by Hayat and his wife,
Norrinda, standing on their front porch. The following exchange ensued:
Diaz: Hi, how are you doing? Everything okay here?
Hayat: [indiscernible]
Diaz: Were you guys just at the IHOP down in Langley Park?
Hayat: What’s the problem?
Diaz: We got a call of a kidnapping, or something like that, were you
guys down at the IHOP?
Hayat: There is no kidnapping here, sir.
Diaz: What?
Hayat: There is no kidnapping here, sir.
4 Importantly, neither Luis nor Solano ever called this incident a kidnapping. The
only report of kidnapping MCPD officers received was the ECC dispatcher who instructed
them to “respond priority for kidnapping.” ECC Audio, at 00:00:18-00:00:28. That
instruction was one created by ECC; Luis never reported that a kidnapping had occurred.
5 Volume II of the joint appendix contains Diaz’s bodycam footage from when he
encountered the Hayats at their home. It is cited as Bodycam Footage, at 00:00.

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Diaz: Okay, well I just need to make sure everybody is ok.
Hayat: Okay . . . how are you going to do that?
Diaz: Well, we are talking. We are talking.
Hayat: Everything is ok here.
Diaz: Well, I need to check. Are there any kids here?
Hayat: Yes.
Diaz: Well, can we see them?
Hayat: You cannot come into our house. We are both lawyers. I am
a professor at [Howard University], she is a professor at UDC.
This is our home. You do not have a warrant. You are not
coming in our home.
Norrinda [overheard in the background]: I am a professor of law.
Diaz: Can you come down here for a second?
Hayat: I cannot.
Norrinda: Can you explain to us what is going on here?
Diaz: Yeah, somebody saw something involving some kids at an
IHOP . . .
Hayat v. Diaz, 766 F. Supp. 3d 512, 520 (D. Md. Feb. 12, 2025) (alteration in original).
Hayat instructed his wife to go back inside the home by stating “Norrinda, walk into
our home please. Walk into our home.” Id. Hayat directed Diaz that “[i]f you would like
to come into our home without a warrant . . . ,” trailing off as he closed the door to his
home. Id. Diaz then rushed to the door and grabbed the door handle to prevent Hayat from
fully closing and locking the door. Bodycam Footage, at 01:40-01:41. Diaz first yelled
“open the door,” followed by Officer Nicole Min, who arrived to assist Diaz, who also

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yelled for Hayat to “open the door.” Bodycam Footage, 01:43-01:47. Both Diaz and Min
continued their attempts to open the door and eventually gained entry to the house. Hayat
was forced to the ground and handcuffed and, shortly after, MCPD officers observed the
Hayat’s children and confirmed that no kidnapping occurred. [J.A. 279.]
II. Procedural History
Though Hayat raised several claims before the district court, as relevant on appeal,
the district court granted summary judgment for the defendant officers on his Fourth
Amendment claim. See Hayat, 766 F. Supp. 3d at 533.6 That is, the district court
concluded that “Diaz had reasonable articulable suspicion that kidnapping had been
committed by [Hayat], to support a Terry stop before he entered” the Hayats’ home such
that “the [d]efendant [o]fficers were justified in following [Hayat] into [his home] to
continue investigating the suspected kidnapping.” Id. at 532–33. The district court
concluded that “[d]efendant [o]fficers’ entry into the [home] to continue the Terry stop was
constitutionally permissible under the Fourth Amendment” without any findings as to
whether Diaz made an official show of authority such that Hayat would not have felt free
to leave. Id. at 533.
6 Like the majority, the district court failed to engage in the appropriate Fourth
Amendment inquiry here. Though it made factual findings and concluded that Diaz had
reasonable suspicion, Hayat, 766 F. Supp. 3d at 530–32, it made no findings as to whether
Diaz made a show of authority such that a reasonable person would not feel free to leave.
It then proceeded to, like the majority, conflate the Terry inquiry with the emergency aid
exception, finding that it was constitutionally permissible for officers to enter the home to
continue a Terry stop. Id. at 533.

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III. Standard of Review
We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo. See Aleman v.
City of Charlotte, 80 F.4th 264, 283 (4th Cir. 2023). Summary judgment is appropriate
only where “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled
to judgment as a matter of law.” F ED . R. CIV . P. 56(a). “[A] fact is material if it ‘might
affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law,’ and . . . a genuine dispute exists
‘if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving
party.’ ” Cooper v. Doyle, 163 F.4th 64, 77 (4th Cir. 2025) (quoting Anderson v. Liberty
Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986)).
IV. Discussion
The Fourth Amendment affords “[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. At the Fourth Amendment’s “ ‘very core’ stands ‘the right of a man
to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.’ ”
Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 6 (2013) (quoting Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S.
505, 511 (1961)). And it is settled law that police may not enter a home without a warrant
without some warrant exception. See Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 590 (1980)
(“[T]he Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house. Absent
exigent circumstances, that threshold may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant.”).
The majority ignores clearly established Fourth Amendment precedent by
concluding (1) that Diaz had reasonable suspicion that Hayat kidnapped children, (2) that

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Diaz initiated but did not complete a Terry stop outside Hayat’s home, (3) that Terry
permitted the officers to enter Hayat’s home to complete the Terry stop, and (4) that exigent
circumstances otherwise justified the officers’ entry. I disagree with each of those
conclusions.
A. Diaz Didn’t Have Reasonable Suspicion That Hayat Kidnapped Children
To conclude Diaz had sufficient reasonable suspicion that Hayat committed a
kidnapping, the majority weaves together a version of events in this case that, at most,
gives consideration only to Diaz’s subjective characterization of the facts before us.
Looking at the totality of the circumstances, Diaz did not have reasonable suspicion that
Hayat kidnapped children because that suspicion was grounded on wholly innocent facts
without explanation of why those innocent facts were indicative of more sinister activity.
When an officer “observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude
in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot,” an officer may perform a
brief investigatory seizure. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968). But to justify such an
intrusion, the “officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken
together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.” Id.
at 21. To be clear, an officer must have a “ ‘particularized and objective basis for
suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.’ ” United States v. Black, 707
F.3d 531, 539 (4th Cir. 2013) (quoting United States v. Griffin, 589 F.3d 148, 152 (4th Cir.
2009)). Officers need more than an “inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or ‘hunch,’ ”
Terry, 392 U.S. at 27, and we consider the totality of the circumstances to determine
whether an officer had sufficient reasonable suspicion, United States v. Foster, 824 F.3d

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84, 89 (4th Cir. 2016). When a suspect engages in evasive behavior or acts nervously, it is
relevant to the circumstances surrounding an officer’s suspicion. See United States v.
Mayo, 361 F.3d 802, 806 (4th Cir. 2004). But we do not categorize “whatever facts are
present no matter how innocent as indicia of suspicious activity.” See United States v.
Foster, 634 F.3d 243, 248 (4th Cir. 2011).
We agree that Diaz’s purported reasonable suspicion began when MCPD officers
received an ECC dispatch for a kidnapping based on a secondhand caller, Luis.7 Luis
informed ECC that he “saw someone grab three children and put them in the trunk of a
vehicle” and that the “someone” was a Black male, driving a black Tesla with a Maryland
license plate number 6CC8056. Sheehan ran a license plate match linking the Tesla to a
Black male residing at 1 Eastmoor Drive.
But the majority conveniently leaves out Moran’s advice to those on the dispatch
line that “Tesla’s have rear-facing seats in the trunk, so [the children] might be able to sit
there.” ECC Audio, at 00:02:40-00:02:47. This fact diminishes the likelihood that the
children put in the “trunk” of the vehicle were kidnapped and instead indicated that they
were buckled into rear-facing seats. And further, the suspect vehicle, a black Tesla, was
not in the driveway, nor did Diaz ask where that vehicle might be.
The majority’s greatest misstep, however, lies in its characterization of otherwise
innocent actions by Hayat and his wife as suspicious. The majority categorizes four other
major facts as sufficient grounds to create reasonable suspicion here: (1) the Hayats’
7 Recall that Luis nor Solano ever characterized what was witnessed as a kidnapping.
See Diss Op. at 29 n.4.

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presence on the porch of their home when Diaz first arrived at their home; (2) the Hayats’
lack of surprise with Diaz arrived, “as if [the Hayats] were anticipating it”; (3) Hayat’s
refusals to confirm whether he had been at IHOP, to show the officers the children in the
house, or to allow his wife to speak to the police; and (4) Diaz’s exchange with the Hayats
based on his “specialized training” as an officer in “recognizing the signs of deception.”
Maj. Op. at 13–14.
None of those facts are enough to conclude Diaz had reasonable suspicion here. At
the start, assuming that two individuals on the porch of their own home must be awaiting
police arrival is nonsensical. Suggesting that the Hayats’ presence on their porch indicated
the couple knew about an ongoing reported kidnapping is merely a label on their activity,
it is not “indicative of some more sinister activity.” Foster, 634 F.3d at 248; see J.A. 290.
I am particularly “skeptical of [the] ‘Government[’s] attempts to spin . . . largely mundane
acts into a web of deception.’ ” Foster, 824 F.3d at 89 (ellipsis in original) (quoting Foster,
634 F.3d at 248).
Neither the Hayats’ lack of surprise when confronted by Diaz nor Hayat’s refusal to
cooperate with Diaz’s questioning and requests should be regarded as suspicious either.
Courts are “ ‘not to overplay a suspect’s nervous behavior in situations where citizens
would normally be expected to be upset.’ ” United States v. Slocumb, 804 F.3d 677, 683
(4th Cir. 2015) (quoting United States v. Glover, 662 F.3d 694, 699 (4th Cir. 2011)). The
majority determines that Hayat’s calm, as opposed to nervous, behavior when Diaz
approached Hayat’s porch reasonably contributed to Diaz’s suspicion. But that would
mean that whether a suspect acts nervous or calm, an officer could deem that reaction

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suspicious. This is absurd. If we are not to overplay a suspect’s nervous behavior when
we would otherwise expect them to be nervous, the same is true for when a suspect exhibits
calm behavior.
In Slocumb, the court held that without adequate explanation of why a defendant’s
activity would be indicative of more sinister criminal activity, it could not find that officers
had reasonable suspicion to seize the defendant. Id. at 683–84. There, officers encountered
the defendant in a parking lot known for drug activity, late at night, while he and his
girlfriend transferred an infant between two vehicles. Id. at 679–80. In a conversation
lasting less than a minute, the defendant explained that he was in the parking lot because
his girlfriend’s vehicle had broken down and he came to pick her up. Id. at 680. During
that interaction, officers noticed that the defendant “appeared to be hurrying [his
girlfriend],” that he “did not make eye contact,” and that he “gave mumbled responses.”
Id. at 680. Accordingly, officers concluded his explanation did not match his conduct. Id.
at 682. But the court concluded that the defendant’s conduct was “insufficient” as “the
only substantial basis for particularized suspicion” because the defendant did not flee or
“take off in ‘headlong flight’ ” nor exhibit “ ‘extreme’ or unusual nervousness or acts of
evasion,” and the officers gave no further explanation why that activity was suspicious. Id.
at 683–84 (first quoting United States v. Massenburg, 654 F.3d 480, 491 (4th Cir. 2011),
then Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 124 (2000), and finally United States v. Foreman,
369 F.3d 776, 784 (4th Cir. 2004)).
Here, Hayat’s conduct was the district court’s only substantial basis for
particularized suspicion that Hayat was engaged in criminal activity. See Hayat, 766 F.

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Supp at 532 (concluding that even though the officers’ knowledge that Tesla’s have rear-
facing seats could diminish an officer’s suspicion, “Diaz’s reasonable suspicion [was]
based upon the conduct of [Hayat] once he arrived at the [Hayats’ home]”). When Diaz
approached the Hayats’ home, he only knew there was a reported kidnapping associated
with a vehicle with legal rear-facing seats registered to 1 Eastmoor Drive. Upon reaching
the porch of the home, Hayat did not immediately walk into his home. He entertained
Diaz’s presence and denied that any kidnapping occurred. Hayat refused to answer
whether he was at IHOP and declined to let officers into his home to see his children.
Hayat’s instruction to his wife to walk back inside and Hayat’s eventual retreat into his
home was without hurry or suspicion.
Like Slocumb, Hayat “acknowledged [Diaz], was not noticeably nervous, and did
not hastily flee the area.” Slocumb, 804 F.3d at 683 (internal quotation marks omitted)
(quoting Foster, 634 F.3d at 248). He exercised his right to refuse “to answer any question
put to him . . . and . . . go on his way.” Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 498 (1983)
(plurality opinion). “[A] refusal to cooperate” with a police request by itself is not enough
to justify a seizure, see Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 437 (1991), and our skepticism
of the Government’s attempt to spin certain actions by a suspect is “amplified when these
mundane acts are incident to the refusal to consent to a [police request],”Massenburg, 654
F.3d at 489 (citing Foster, 634 F.3d at 248).
The majority regards Diaz’s characterizations of his encounter with Hayat as
dispositive of what a reasonable officer would have concluded. Maj. Op. at 16. But Hayat
did not exhibit any conduct this court has deemed to be suspicious. An officer “must do

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more than simply label a behavior as suspicious to make it so.” Foster, 634 F.3d at 248.
He must “articulate why a particular behavior is suspicious or logically demonstrate, given
the surrounding circumstances, that the behavior is likely to be indicative of some more
sinister activity than may appear at first glance.” Foster, 634 F.3d at 248. And Diaz’s
characterization of Hayat’s otherwise innocent conduct as showing “signs of deception”
does not change the result. All he offers is his knowledge, training, and experience
conducting interviews and interrogations. J.A. 54. “Although we generally defer to
officers’ claimed training and experience, we withhold that deference when failing to do
so would erode necessary safeguards against ‘arbitrary and boundless’ police
prejudgments.” Wingate v. Fulford, 987 F.3d 299, 307 (4th Cir. 2021) (quoting Black, 707
F.3d at 541). After all, the “very function of the [Fourth] Amendment . . . [is] to ensure
that the quick ad hoc judgments of police officers are subject to review and control by the
judiciary.” United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 242 (1973) (Marshall, J., dissenting).
We are not to “divide-and-conquer” independent facts to disregard an officer’s
purported suspicion when those facts taken together might “ ‘warrant[] further
investigation.’ ” United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 274–75 (2002) (quoting Terry, 392
U.S. at 22). But taken together, the totality of the circumstances here do no support a
conclusion that Diaz had reasonable suspicion that Hayat was engaged in kidnapping.
B. There Was No Terry Stop
Even if I were to agree that Diaz had reasonable suspicion that Hayat was engaged
in kidnapping, he made no seizure based on that suspicion such that a Terry stop was
initiated. In concluding that Diaz effectuated a seizure, the majority disregards the mandate

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that an officer must have both reasonable suspicion and make an official show of authority
such that a suspect would not feel free to leave.
A person is seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when “ ‘in view
of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed
that he was not free to leave.’ ” United States v. Gray, 883 F.2d 320, 322 (4th Cir. 1989)
(quoting United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554 (1980) (plurality opinion)). There
are several factors pertinent to our analysis of whether a reasonable person would feel free
to leave. Those factors “include, but are not limited to, the number of police officers
present during the encounter, whether they were in uniform or displayed their weapons,
whether they touched the defendant, whether they sought to block his departure or restrain
his movement, whether the officers’ questioning was nonthreatening, and whether they
treated the defendant as though they suspected him of ‘illegal activity rather than treating
the encounter as “routine” in nature.’ ” United States v. Williams, 180 F.4th 613, 622 (4th
Cir. 2026) (quoting Gray, 888 F.2d 322–23).
Diaz made no official show of authority before Hayat retreated into his home.
Taking each of the relevant factors in turn, the circumstances here would communicate to
a reasonable person they are free to leave. For much of the exchange with Hayat, Diaz was
the only officer at the scene. When he arrived, Diaz did not activate his sirens or lights.
Diaz was in uniform but never displayed a weapon while talking with Hayat and his wife
on their porch. There was no sense of urgency nor were any commands made by Diaz
when approaching and later talking with the Hayats. No physical contact was made
between Diaz and Hayat until Diaz attempted to prevent Hayat from closing the door to his

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home. Diaz did not inform Hayat or his wife that they were suspects. He only mentioned
that MCPD received a report of kidnapping and asked Hayat about whether there were
children inside of his home. And finally, he never requested any identification from Hayat.
I agree with the majority that Diaz’s encounter with Hayat began as an otherwise
lawful, voluntary encounter. But where we depart is the majority’s characterization that
Hayat was seized when Diaz prevented Hayat from closing the door to his home. The
majority does not tell us when this encounter turned from consensual to investigatory
detention. Likely, because this encounter was never converted to such. Instead, the
majority concludes that Diaz “gave verbal commands and took physical action indicating
that the Hayats were not free to disengage” such that Diaz made a sufficient show of
authority that Hayat was not free to leave. Maj. Op. at 19. But that is not how this inquiry
works. Diaz made no official show of authority before Hayat retreated into his home.
Unlike the majority describes, Diaz never “vocally told the Hayats to stop” before they
reentered their home. Maj. Op at 19. He only yelled “open the door” and physically
prevented Hayat from closing the door once Hayat and his wife had fully reentered their
home. Bodycam Footage, at 01:43-01:47. How could Hayat’s “freedom to walk away” be
“restrain[ed]” such that he was seized when he had already reentered his home? Terry, 392
U.S. at 16.
Because Diaz made no show of authority before Hayat reentered his home such that
a reasonable person would not feel free to leave, Hayat was never detained and was
permitted to retreat into his home. After all, this encounter began on Hayat’s porch, a
“classic example of an area adjacent to the home” which we refer to as curtilage. Jardines,

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569 U.S. at 6–7 (“This area around the home is ‘intimately linked to the home, both
physically and psychologically,’ and is where ‘privacy expectations are most
heightened.’ ” Id. at 7 (quoting California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 213 (1986))). Recall
that when officers do not have a warrant and knock on the door of a home, “they [may] do
no more than any private citizen might do.” Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. 452, 469–70. The
majority’s conclusion flouts that rule.
Imagine the Hayats were inside of their home and officers knocked on their front
door. Under the majority’s logic, if the Hayats opened the door and spoke with Diaz briefly
but then decided to terminate the encounter, Diaz could grab the handle of the Hayats’ front
door to prevent them from closing the door and that would be a sufficient show of authority
that would rid the Hayats’ of their right to retreat into their home. That can’t be right. See
Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 14 (1948) (“The right of officers to thrust themselves
into a home is . . . a grave concern, not only to the individual but to a society which chooses
to dwell in reasonable security and freedom from surveillance.”). Even though Hayat
initially consented to this encounter, he was not obligated to “allow the officers to enter the
premises” of his home and importantly was permitted to “refuse to answer any questions
at any time.” King, 563 U.S. at 470. Diaz’s subsequent entry into the home after Hayat’s
denial of that encounter was thus a Fourth Amendment violation that should not be cast
otherwise as an investigatory detention.
C. Terry Does Not Permit Police Officers to Follow a Suspect Into Their Home
The majority takes its analysis a step further away from the precedent of this court.
After it imagines a valid Terry stop was initiated here, the majority proceeds to hold that

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an officer’s initiation of a Terry stop is enough for that officer to follow a suspect into their
home. The majority creates a rule that “when an officer has reasonable suspicion that
criminal activity is afoot and that the activity involves risk of injury, he may, to allay his
suspicion and the concern for injury, extend his Terry stop of the suspect into the suspect’s
home following the suspect’s retreat.” Maj. Op. at 23. It casts Warden, Maryland
Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294 (1967), and United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38
(1976), Supreme Court cases concerned with the exigent circumstances analysis, as the
foundation for its adoption of Rivera v. Washington, 57 F. App’x 558, 562 (4th Cir. 2003)
(per curiam), a case not concerned with exigency at all. In doing so, the majority imports
the exigent circumstances inquiry into a Terry analysis, violating the clear lines drawn by
Fourth Amendment precedent.
Warden lays the foreground for officers to enter a home without a warrant based on
“the exigencies of the situation [that] ma[ke] that course imperative.” 387 U.S. at 298
(internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 456
(1948)). And in Santana, the Court again reaffirmed destruction of evidence and hot
pursuit of a fleeing suspect as exigent circumstances permitting warrantless entry.
Santana, 427 U.S. at 42–43. There, officers had probable cause that Santana was engaged
in drug trafficking. Id. at 40. Arriving at Santana’s home, officers saw her standing in the
home’s open doorway, immediately exited their vehicle, and yelled “police.” Id. at 40.
Santana retreated into the home and officers followed her inside. Because there was “a
realistic expectation that any delay would result in destruction of evidence,” the Court
upheld the warrantless entry recognizing a “need to act quickly.” Id. at 42–43. The Court

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concluded that retreat into one’s home “could ‘not defeat an arrest’ that had ‘been set in
motion in a public place.’ ” Lange v. California, 594 U.S. 295, 304 (2021) (emphasis
added) (quoting Santana, 427 U.S. at 42–43).
As shown, both Warden and Santana are concerned with exigent circumstances
where officers entered a home without a warrant to effectuate arrests of fleeing suspects.
The majority is correct that these cases “stand for the commonsense proposition that a
person who has become a suspect for criminal activity may not rely on the constitutional
protections of his house to thwart the officers’ attempt to make an arrest.” Maj. Op. at 22.
The hot pursuit warrant exception persists for that exact reason. But these cases apply
when an officer attempts to make an arrest, not when an officer makes a brief investigatory
stop to allay their suspicion. See United States v. Leggette, 57 F.4th 406, 411 (4th Cir.
2023) (“Indeed, by their very definition, Terry stops are not the equivalent of an arrest.”).
And both cases were decided before the Supreme Court articulated that the curtilage of
one’s home, which includes the porch, “is where ‘privacy expectations are most
heightened,’ ” making them less persuasive here. Jardines, 569 U.S. at 7 (quoting Ciraolo,
476 U.S. at 213); contra Santana, 427 U.S. at 42 (“While it may be true that under the
common law of property the threshold of one’s dwelling is ‘private,’ as is the yard
surrounding the house, it is nonetheless clear that under the cases interpreting the Fourth
Amendment Santana was in a ‘public’ place. She was not in an area where she had any
expectation of privacy.”).
Diaz was not chasing a fleeing suspect here. Nor was Diaz set to make an arrest.
Diaz and Hayat had a “voluntary encounter in a public place,” Hayat’s porch, and Hayat

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terminated that encounter by entering his home. Maj. Op. at 19. And “[w]here a suspect
. . . chooses to end a voluntary conversation with law enforcement and go inside [their]
home, that does not constitute flight.” Lange, 594 U.S. at 329 (2021) (Roberts, C.J.,
concurring) (citing Royer, 460 U.S. at 497–498). Even if I were to conclude that Diaz
made an official show of authority to have initiated a Terry stop, which clearly is not the
case, a thwarted stop does not arise to the same level as a thwarted arrest.
But instead, the majority next marshals Rivera v. Washington, 57 F. App’x 558(4th
Cir. 2003) (per curiam), an unpublished, nonbinding decision, to conclude that “when an
officer has reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot and that the activity involves
risk of injury, he may, to allay his suspicion and the concern for injury, extend his Terry
stop of the suspect into the suspect’s home following the suspect’s retreat.” Maj. Op. at
23.
In Rivera, officers responded to a domestic disturbance call after a resident heard a
heated argument in their apartment complex parking lot between a couple. 57 F. App’x at
560. The responding officer told the couple he needed to interview them and ordered the
plaintiff, Rivera, to “stand by” while the officer questioned his girlfriend. Id. Rivera
ignored the officer’s orders and entered the backdoor of his apartment. Id. After the officer
completed questioning the girlfriend, he walked to the open back door and repeatedly asked
Rivera to exit the apartment so he could speak with him. After Rivera refused to exit, the
officer entered the apartment, began to pull Rivera out of the apartment, and was met with
Rivera’s resistance. The court held that the officers did not violate Rivera’s constitutional
rights because “courts have recognized that a person cannot avoid a Terry stop simply by

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retreating into a home.” Rivera, 57 F. App’x at 562. But Rivera’s conclusion relied on a
district court case that did not concern a Terry stop made inside of one’s home.8
The majority nonetheless deems Rivera instructive in this case, even though its use
of Rivera conflates a Terry stop—a brief seizure occurring in a public place—with
warrantless entry into a home pursuant to an exigent circumstance. Implicit in a Terry stop
is an officer’s need to investigate criminal activity that might be afoot. And separate and
apart from Terry, officers are permitted to make entry into a home when they have “ ‘an
objectively reasonable basis for believing’ that . . . entry was direly needed to prevent or
deal with serious harm.” Case v. Montana, 607 U.S. 107, 117 (2026) (quoting Brigham
City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 400 (2006)).
In Case, the Supreme Court expressly declined to apply the reasonable suspicion
standard to home entries and instead reaffirmed that Brigham City “formulated its own
standard for dealing with household emergencies—again, whether an officer has ‘an
objectively reasonable basis for believing’ that an occupant is seriously injured or
imminently threatened with such harm.” Id. at 116 (quoting Brigham City, 547 U.S. at
8 The court relied on our summary affirmance of Harbin v. City of Alexandria, 712
F. Supp. 67 (E.D. Va. 1989), aff’d, 908 F.2d 967 (4th Cir. 1990). In Harbin, the district
court found the police lawfully “stopped” a plaintiff in his home after they received a report
that the plaintiff was brandishing a gun nearby. Id. at 68–69. The officers followed a man
who matched the suspect’s description to his home. Id. at 69. As the man crossed the
threshold of his home into his living room through an open door, the officer yelled for him
to stop and turn around with his hands above his head. Id. The man did so and stepped
out onto the porch of his home. Id. Importantly, the officers never entered the suspect’s
home nor did the encounter last more than five minutes. Therefore, the court found the
encounter was reasonable.

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400). And most importantly, the Court indicated that emergency aid situations necessitate
a different lens than that “generally used to consider investigative activity.” Case, 607
U.S. at 507 (determining the probable-cause standard, which is related to criminal
investigations, does not fit into the emergency-aid context, which is a not concerned with
criminal activity or investigation).
By permitting officers to allay suspicion by entering a home without a warrant using
reasonable suspicion of ongoing criminal activity that might involve risk of injury, the
majority “erroneously [seeks] to apply a lower standard akin to reasonable suspicion” to
the exigent circumstances inquiry and cast that rule as part of the court’s Terry
jurisprudence. Case, 607 U.S. at 120 (Sotomayor, J., concurring). Because the majority’s
approach is grounded in nonbinding, inapplicable precedent and conflicts with
longstanding Supreme Court precedent requiring a warrant or warrant exception to enter a
home, I must dissent.
D. There Were No Exigent Circumstances Justifying Entry Into Hayat’s Home
And finally, the majority is confident that exigent circumstances justified the
officers’ entry into Hayat’s home to check on the children inside. The majority concludes
that Diaz’s suspicion that Hayat was engaged in kidnapping combined with the nature of
the crime constituted exigent circumstances justifying entry into the Hayats’ home. But in
reaching that conclusion, the majority disregards the exigent circumstances inquiry, as
clearly established by Supreme Court precedent.
There are three recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement wherein officers
may enter a home without one, best known as exigent circumstances. Officers may enter

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“to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence,” Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 403, “to
render emergency assistance to an injured occupant or to protect an occupant from
imminent injury,” id., or when in hot pursuit of a fleeing suspect, Santana, 427 U.S. at 42–
43. Neither the destruction of evidence nor hot pursuit exceptions are relevant here. The
district court, albeit indirectly, relied on the emergency aid exception to justify the
warrantless entry into Hayat’s home.
The emergency aid exception permits officers to enter a home without a warrant if
they have an objectively reasonable basis that their intervention is necessary to prevent
serious harm. Case, 607 U.S. at 118–19. If a general emergency is “enveloped by a
sufficient level of urgency,” that situation may constitute an exigent circumstance. United
States v. Yengel, 711 F.3d 392, 397 (4th Cir. 2013). But not all dangerous emergencies
immediately justify a warrantless entry. Such encroachment onto one’s property is “strictly
circumscribed by the exigencies which justify its initiation.” Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S.
385, 393 (1978) (citing Terry, 392 U.S. at 25–26).
For many of the same reasons that I conclude Diaz did not have reasonable
suspicion, I find he did not have an objectively reasonable basis for entering Hayat’s home
pursuant to exigent circumstances. To begin, the Supreme Court has made clear that
Brigham City’s reasonableness standard is a heightened inquiry compared to the reasonable
suspicion inquiry. See Case, 607 U.S. at 116 (“Brigham City did not adopt Terry’s
reasonable-suspicion standard for home entries.”).
The tip given by Luis and the eyewitness account by Solano only confirmed that a
Black male was seen putting three children in a trunk at an IHOP, yelling at those children,

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and closing the trunk. Those facts alone could reasonably lead one to conclude that a
kidnapping was afoot, but that suspicion was allayed once officers knew that the suspect
vehicle was a Tesla with legal rear-facing seats. Beyond that, the officers did not obtain
additional information or observe any conduct that would cause Diaz or any other officer
to suspect that Hayat was engaged in a kidnapping. See Brown, 401 F.3d 588, 596 (holding
that a “brief, general description” of the defendant, his whereabouts, and an allegation he
was carrying a firearm was not enough for reasonable suspicion because the officers had
not acquired additional information nor did they “observe any conduct by [the defendant]
that would cause them to suspect that he was carrying a firearm”).
And what’s more, there was no indication from the eyewitness or the anonymous
tip that the children were in immediate danger. Hayat’s choice “to end a voluntary
conversation with law enforcement and go inside [his] home” did not constitute flight or
indicate that the children in the home might be in danger. Lange, 594 U.S. at 329 (Roberts,
C.J., concurring) (citing Royer, 460 U.S. at 497–498).
A tip indicating a Black male yelled at children in the trunk of a Tesla with legal
rear-facing seats without any identifying information about those children or other conduct
that would have heightened the danger faced by those children, is not enough to meet the
standard here. This is an objective inquiry, not one “depend[ing] on the officers’ subjective
intent or the seriousness of any crime they are investigating when the emergency arises.”
Michigan v. Fisher, 558 U.S. 45, 47 (2009). It does not matter what Diaz necessarily
thought, but what would have been objectively reasonable to think under the circumstances

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before us. And under these circumstances, I believe Diaz’s entry was not objectively
reasonable.
V. Conclusion
For the above reasons, I would have reversed the district court’s grant of summary
judgment. The majority deeply mischaracterizes the facts of this case to achieve its desired
holding—a conclusion that disregards the Fourth Amendment and renders its protections
toothless. What I can’t understand is how the majority begins by parroting Fourth
Amendment guarantees while in the same breath denying Hayat those basic rights. “[T]he
principles we express [must] comport with the actions we take.” Acevedo, 500 U.S. at 583
(Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment). And the actions taken by the majority abrade
clearly established Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit precedent.
Today’s decision is in direct conflict with the basic principles and safeguards of the
Fourth Amendment. And the “majority attempts to gloss over the violence that today's
decision does to the Fourth Amendment with empty admonitions.” Bostick, 501 U.S. at
450 (1991) (Marshall, J., dissenting). I respectfully dissent.

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