State v. Mai

Responding to an early morning hours radio call of a “man with a gun,” police officers approached a double-parked van containing five occupants; the van also was surrounded by a half-dozen young men. Based on that obvious traffic violation, the police detained the van. Fearing for his and his fellow officers’ safety, one of the police officers opened the van’s passenger-side sliding side door as a protective measure before actually ordering the passengers to exit the van. In so doing, he observed that the appearance of one of the occupants of the van was consistent with the description of a…