Technically, he had to bend down and look directly in the compartment, after he was told where it was. If the OP was carrying the gun under the seat (as you mentioned in a previous post), how would this have been different? The officer would have taken his flashlight, bent down and looked directly under the seat. Exactly the same thing he did to look in the compartment. This would suggest that under the seat carry is not properly concealed by this officers definition either.mr.72 wrote: Anyway, point is that, while it may have been adequately concealed for most purposes, this all goes out the window once you get stopped and the cops start looking into the vehicle to find things. It's going to be a tough argument to make, that the gun was concealed, when all that it took to reveal it was a flashlight.
I'm not that familiar with 15 passenger vans, but they tend to sit pretty high. If the compartment faced the front window (center console), there is no way you could see a gun tucked into a compartment under the cup holder unless you were standing on the hood. If the compartment was in the dash facing the seats, maybe you could see it from a side or rear window but that would still be iffy. Besides, in a lot of vans those windows have heavy tint.
Dave