Motion denied in Baca drug possession case

A man accused of shooting a Clovis police officer earlier this year has had a motion to suppress denied on unrelated 2015 charges of drug possession and assault on a peace officer.

Anthony M. Baca, 34, was in court on Nov. 15 asking evidence in the 2015 case be suppressed. Judge Fred Van Soelen ruled a Nov. 30, 2015, early-morning stop on Anthony M. Baca, 34, was permissible under case law.

His trial for the charges is scheduled for Feb. 7.

Baca’s attorney, Brett Carter, argued a Clovis Police Department patrolman who stopped Baca had no definitive reason to detain him and ask for his identification while on patrol.

The stop, Officer Daniel Cesarez testified, was based on Baca and an acquaintance wearing dark clothing, walking during a time where there was a spike in burglaries and walking in an unusual path through an apartment complex.

It wasn’t a crime, Carter said, to walk, wear dark clothing, possess a backpack or walk in a path an officer finds unusual — so he argued the detainment lacked foundation and any evidence produced should be tossed.

In his Nov. 18 ruling, Van Soelen referenced Terry v. Ohio, a 1968 case ruling totality of activities could add up to reasonable suspicion.

“The court finds that argument persuasive in this matter,” Van Soelen wrote. “While it is not illegal to cross a residential lawn, a walk between duplex buildings, or to walk fast, or wear dark clothing and backpacks, all together, the activities of the two individuals do rise, in the Court’s view of the evidence, to the level of specific and articulable facts” needed to make a stop.