Cite as: 540 U. S. 419 (2004)
Opinion of the Court
with the appellate court. It held (by a vote of 4 to 3) that our decision in Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U. S. 32 (2000), required it to find the stop unconstitutional. 202 Ill. 2d 1, 779 N. E. 2d 855 (2002).
Because lower courts have reached different conclusions about this matter, we granted certiorari. See Burns v. Commonwealth, 261 Va. 307, 541 S. E. 2d 872, cert. denied, 534 U. S. 1043 (2001) (finding similar checkpoint stop constitutional). We now reverse the Illinois Supreme Court's determination.
II
The Illinois Supreme Court basically held that our decision in Edmond governs the outcome of this case. We do not agree. Edmond involved a checkpoint at which police stopped vehicles to look for evidence of drug crimes committed by occupants of those vehicles. After stopping a vehicle at the checkpoint, police would examine (from outside the vehicle) the vehicle's interior; they would walk a drug-sniffing dog around the exterior; and, if they found sufficient evidence of drug (or other) crimes, they would arrest the vehicle's occupants. 531 U. S., at 35. We found that police had set up this checkpoint primarily for general "crime control" purposes, i. e., "to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing." Id., at 41. We noted that the stop was made without individualized suspicion. And we held that the Fourth Amendment forbids such a stop, in the absence of special circumstances. Id., at 44.
The checkpoint stop here differs significantly from that in Edmond. The stop's primary law enforcement purpose was not to determine whether a vehicle's occupants were committing a crime, but to ask vehicle occupants, as members of the public, for their help in providing information about a crime in all likelihood committed by others. The police expected the information elicited to help them apprehend, not the vehicle's occupants, but other individuals.
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