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STATE OF MINNESOTA IN COURT OF APPEALS A11-1008 State of Minnesota, Respondent, vs. Theng Yang, Appellant. Filed June 18, 2012 Reversed Ross, Judge Ramsey County District Court File No. 62-CR-10-9510 Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and John Choi, Ramsey County Attorney, Thomas R. Ragatz, Assistant County Attorney, St. Paul, Minnesota (for respondent) Jodie L. Carlson, Assistant Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota; and Tara Reese Duginske, Special Assistant Public Defender, Briggs and Morgan, P.A., Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Rodenberg, Presiding Judge; Halbrooks, Judge; and Ross, Judge. SYLLABUS Because the Minnesota handgun statute that prohibits a person from carrying a handgun "in a public place" defines "public place" only as government land or as private land that is clearly dedicated to the public for public use, police officers do not have

reasonable suspicion to detain a man merely on a report that he possesses a gun at a private residence and on their finding him walking from that residence into its front yard. OPINION ROSS, Judge. A 911 operator received a report that an Asian male, who was wearing red pants at a specific St. Paul residence, had a gun. Police arrived and saw an Asian male with red pants in the front yard. They handcuffed the male, Theng Yang, asked him about the gun, and retrieved a handgun from his coat pocket. The district court convicted Yang of unlawful possession of a firearm by an ineligible person because a prior conviction made it a felony for him to possess a firearm anywhere. In this appeal from the denial of Yang's pretrial motion to suppress evidence, we must decide whether the officers' stop violated Yang's constitutional right to be free of unreasonable police seizures. We hold that the officers' actions violated Yang's constitutional rights because they had no reason to suspect that his conduct met the restrictive elements of Minnesota's handgun law. FACTS On a November 2010 afternoon, Officers Michael McNeill and Seth Wilson were patrolling the St. Paul Frogtown neighborhood when a police dispatcher relayed a 911 report that an Asian male wearing red pants had a gun at a particular residential address in their area. The officers recognized the address, associating it with drugs and arrests. Officers McNeill and Wilson, and others, arrived and saw four or five men of Asian descent entering the front yard from the porch, one of the men wearing red pants. The officers immediately took cover behind their squad cars, drew their handguns, and 2

ordered the men to the ground. Officer Wilson handcuffed the man wearing red pants, Theng Yang, and asked him where the gun was. Yang told him that it was in his coat pocket. Officer Wilson found a handgun there. We assume that the officers at some point learned that the home was Yang's, but the record is silent about it. Because he was previously convicted of a felony, Yang could not lawfully possess any firearm anywhere, so the state charged him with unlawful firearm possession. See Minn. Stat.

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