Opinion
December 22, 1986
Appeal from the County Court, Suffolk County (Ingraham, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
That branch of the defendant's omnibus motion which was to suppress a gun allegedly found on his person by the police was properly denied. The actions of the police were at all times reasonably related in scope and intensity to the information available to them as their encounter with the defendant unfolded (see, People v. De Bour, 40 N.Y.2d 210; People v. Finlayson, 76 A.D.2d 670, lv denied 51 N.Y.2d 1011, cert denied 450 U.S. 931). Although an anonymous tip of a "man with gun" does not, without more, rise to the level of reasonable suspicion so as to justify the stop and frisk of a suspect (People v. Benjamin, 51 N.Y.2d 267, 270; People v. Milton, 115 A.D.2d 666, 667), the informant in this case presented himself in person to the police and told them that two men were walking nearby and that one of them, whom he described, possessed a gun. Moreover, as the two men came into the officers' view, the informant specifically pointed out and identified the defendant as the person whom he claimed was carrying a gun. Thus, although the informant left the scene before the police could ascertain his identity or the basis of his tip, there was no reasonable possibility that the defendant was not the person to whom the informant had referred (see, People v. Milton, supra, at p 667), and the information imparted by the informant prior to his departure provided justification for the police to stop the defendant for the purpose of further inquiry (see, People v Middleton, 119 A.D.2d 593, 595). Thereafter, when a police officer stopped the defendant to make such inquiry, the defendant held his left arm out to keep the officer at a distance, and he thrust his right hand into his coat pocket and turned that side of his body away from the officer so as to conceal it. Under these circumstances, the officer had a reasonable suspicion that the defendant was armed, thereby justifying the protective pat-down search which revealed the presence of the gun (see, People v Alexander, 120 A.D.2d 537; People v. Middleton, supra, at p 595). Mangano, J.P., Bracken, Niehoff and Spatt, JJ., concur.