Hazaa Shahit v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN Aric Tosqui, et al., DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

1The Honorable James L. Graham, United States District Judge for the
Southern District of Ohio, sitting by designation.
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 06a0535n.06
Filed: August 1, 2006
No. 05-1924
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
Hazaa Shahit, et al., )
)
Plaintiffs-Appellants,) ON APPEAL FROM THE
v. ) UNITED STATES DISTRICT
) COURT FOR THE EASTERN
Aric Tosqui, et al., ) DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
)
Defendants-Appellees. )
BEFORE: DAUGHTREY and COLE, Circuit Judges, and GRAHAM, 1 District
Judge.
GRAHAM, District Judge. This is a civil rights action filed
under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 by plaintiffs Hazaa Shahit and
Mohamed Elmathil against defendants Aric Tosqui and Michael Parish,
police officers employed by the City of Detroit. Plaintiffs
claimed that the traffic stop of their vehicle by the defendant
officers was not supported by reasonable suspicion, that their
subsequent arrest was not supported by probable cause, that the
stop and arrest were motivated by plaintiffs’ ethnic origin, and
that the officers conspired to violate their civil rights. In a
decision rendered on June 1, 2005, the district court entered an
order granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the
grounds of qualified immunity, and this appeal follows.
We agree with the well-reasoned opinion of the district court,
and find that summary judgment was appropriate in this case. We

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further note that while there has been some confusion in this
circuit in the past about the standard to be applied to
investigatory stops for civil traffic violations, this court
recently noted in United States v. Perez, 440 F.3d 363 (6 th Cir.
2006) that “[a]n ordinary traffic stop is like an investigative
detention, the scope of which is governed by Terry principles.”
Id. at 370 (citing United States v. Hill, 195 F.3d 258, 264 (6 th
Cir. 1999)). A stop for a civil traffic violation may be based on
reasonable suspicion. See Weaver v. Shadoan, 340 F.3d 398 (6 th Cir.
2003)(upholding a civil traffic stop based on reasonable suspicion
of a violation of vehicle registration and window tinting laws).
The district court correctly held that the evidence submitted on
summary judgment showed that the vehicle stop in this case was
valid, as it was based on reasonable suspicion that plaintiffs were
engaging in criminal activity and were committing a civil traffic
violation, and that no genuine issue of fact existed in that
regard.
For the reasons stated by the district court in its order of
June 1, 2005, the judgment of the district court awarding summary
judgment to the defendants on the grounds of qualified immunity is
AFFIRMED.

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