Opinion
August 17, 1987
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Grajales, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
Upon encountering the defendant and his cohorts running quickly from the direction of a grocery store through a school yard and into a 1957 Buick with its headlights off and its engine running, the arresting officer had reason to suspect that criminal activity was afoot. The officer's suspicions were justifiably heightened by the fact that the individuals were looking furtively over their shoulders as they ran and that the encounter took place in an area notorious for street robberies. After stopping his unmarked police vehicle parallel to the defendant's vehicle, the arresting officer displayed his shield and started to exit the police vehicle. The Buick thereupon "took off" at a very high rate of speed and a chase ensued. Shortly thereafter, a marked police vehicle joined the chase, which ended when the fleeing vehicle crashed into a fire hydrant and a chain link fence. Several of the occupants of the vehicle fled into the nearby housing projects while the defendant was apprehended hiding beneath the automobile. A search of the immediate vicinity revealed a .32 caliber revolver containing three live rounds. The defendant was thereupon transported back to the area where he had first been observed. At that location, the proprietors of a grocery store which had recently been robbed identified the defendant as one of the perpetrators.
The furtive conduct of the defendant and his cohorts and the fact that the encounter occurred in a high-crime area constituted the objective credible reason for the police action in the instant case (see, People v. De Bour, 40 N.Y.2d 210, 223). In assessing the over-all reasonableness of police conduct, a court is obliged to consider not only the information which the police initially have but also the information gathered as events unfold (see, People v. Chapman, 103 A.D.2d 494, 496). The high-speed chase, the defendant's subsequent attempt to hide beneath an automobile and the complainants' on-the-scene identification of the defendant as one of the perpetrators clearly provided the police with probable cause to arrest the defendant.
The time between the initial police observation of the defendant and the complainants' on-the-scene identification was approximately 15 minutes. As the hearing court properly found, the showup was not impermissibly suggestive inasmuch as it was in close proximity to the crime with respect to both time and place (see, People v. Love, 57 N.Y.2d 1023, 1024-1025). The transporting of the defendant back to the scene constituted a minimally intrusive method of investigation which was likely to confirm or dispel suspicion quickly (see, People v. Hicks, 68 N.Y.2d 234).
The station house identification of the defendant by the complainants was likewise proper since it served merely as a prompt confirmation of the prior identification made by them on the street (see, People v. Higgs, 111 A.D.2d 410). Nor did any danger of misidentification exist at the time of the trial inasmuch as the recognition of the defendant in the courtroom was based on the vivid recollection of one of the complainants of the defendant from the attempted robbery rather than from his accidental viewing of the handcuffed defendant in the courtroom. There was clearly an independent source for that complainant's in-court identification based on his extended ability to observe the defendant in the well-lighted store (see, People v. Mayers, 100 A.D.2d 558). Weinstein, J.P., Spatt, Sullivan and Harwood, JJ., concur.