Opinion
570299/2014
12-17-2014
The People of the State of New York, Appellant, v. Dwayne Black, Defendant-Respondent.
PRESENT: Schoenfeld, J.P., Shulman, Ling-Cohan, JJ.
The People of the State of New York appeal from an oral order of the Criminal Court of the City of New York, Bronx County (John H. Wilson, J.), dated March 7, 2013, which granted defendant's motion to suppress physical evidence.
PER CURIAM:
Oral order (John H. Wilson, J.), issued March 7, 2013, reversed, on the law and the facts, motion denied and matter remitted for further proceedings.
Defendant's suppression motion should have been denied. The credited and unrefuted police testimony elicited at the hearing showed that the plainclothes officers, immediately after hearing gunshots in the area, proceeded in their unmarked police car in the direction of the gunshots and, within less than a minute, came upon the defendant and two others walking on foot; that defendant and his companions became nervous and disoriented upon seeing the police car, and thereupon separated, with defendant quickening his pace and looking over his shoulder at the now stopped police vehicle; and that defendant, when asked to stop, kept walking away at a fast pace, while adjusting the right waistband area of his bubble jacket as if he were "grasp[ing] ... [a] heavy object of substantial size." These police observations and the totality of the circumstances gave rise to at least a founded suspicion that criminal activity was afoot that justified a common-law right to inquire (see People v DeBour, 40 NY2d 210, 223 [1976]; People v Davis, 106 AD3d 144, 151 [2013], lv denied 21 NY3d 1073 [2013]). Defendant's immediate flight, before the police could even approach him to make an inquiry, established reasonable suspicion and justified the police pursuit (see People v Pines, 281 AD2d 311, 312 [2001], affd 99 NY2d 525 [2002]; People v Hernandez, 3 AD3d 325, 325 [2004], lv denied 2 NY3d 741 [2004]). The police properly recovered the handgun discarded by defendant during his flight.
THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE COURT.
I concurI concurI concur
Decision Date: December 17, 2014