The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that police officers have the right to stop, question and perform a pat-down search on citizens who run away if there is a “common-sense” reason for suspecting them of committing a crime.

While local law-enforcement officers applauded the decision, civil liberties advocates said the case will probably not affect Iowans, but in other areas of the country, it might give police too much reach.

“It probably won’t have much effect here in Iowa,” said Ben Stone, executive director of the Iowa Civil Liberties Union.

But people who fear police, such as those who live in high-crime areas and have experienced police brutality, often have good reason to run from the police, Stone said.

“It’s easy for white, middle-class people to believe that anyone running from the police is guilty,” he said. “Understand that under certain circumstances, a black man can fear being searched by police simply because he is a black man in a high-crime neighborhood.”

The case Illinois vs. Wardlow involved an African-American man, William Wardlow, who was stopped in 1995 by police officers in a Chicago neighborhood that had a history of drug trafficking.

When Wardlow ran from the police, he was chased down and searched, and he was found to have a .38 caliber handgun and five bullets in his bag.

Wardlow appealed his conviction of carrying a concealed weapon, claiming the white officers who stopped him did so because of discrimination. The conviction had been previously overturned by lower courts before the Supreme Court upheld the original decision 5-4.

Department of Public Safety Director Loras Jaeger said he agreed with the decision because officers should be given the right to take all things into account when considering a situation.

“The courts need to determine the totality of the situation,” Jaeger said.

“You have to look at the whole picture. A reasonable person would suspect someone running away from police was involved in some illegal activity,” he said.

An example Jaeger gave of putting this ruling to use was if DPS were patrolling campus in the early morning hours and saw someone running away from them in an area that had repeated reports of burglary. He said officers would then stop that individual.

Ames Chief of Police Dennis Ballantine said the ruling would not change his officers’ conduct at all.

“We’ve already been under the assumption that if a person is running for no apparent reason, it’s common sense to stop them,” he said.

Other considerations such as time of day, location of activity and history of criminal activity are taken into account when stopping someone, Ballantine said.

However, Doug Miller, president of the ISU chapter of the ACLU, said he opposes the ruling because it gives officers a way to hide possible prejudices.

“In this specific case, race might not be a factor, but in the future it might allow police officers to use the ruling as a justification [to stop someone],” said Miller, senior in political science and history.