Opinion
August 3, 1998
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Demarest, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
There is no merit to the defendant's claim that the police lacked probable cause to arrest him. The defendant was identified by an informant, who knew him, as the person who had fired some five rounds from an automatic weapon into a group of people standing in the street, wounding one of them. This informant telephoned the police at least twice and, shortly after the defendant had been arrested, was interviewed by the officer who testified for the People at the suppression hearing. Therefore, the informant was not a presumptively unreliable "anonymous tipster," as the defendant suggests, but rather a frightened eyewitness who disclosed her identity only to the police. It is readily inferable from the suppression hearing evidence that this neighbor's information adequately satisfied the requirements of the Aguilar-Spinelli test. The evidence established that the informant was a reliable citizen whose identity was known to the police, and the basis of her knowledge was first-hand observation ( see, People v. Parris, 83 N.Y.2d 342, 346; People v. Hetrick, 80 N.Y.2d 344, 348-349; see also, People v. Petralia, 62 N.Y.2d 47, 52, cert denied 469 U.S. 852).
We also find that the People adequately established that there were exigent circumstances justifying the police officers' warrantless entry into the defendant's apartment. Among other things, the police had information that the defendant was in fact the shooter, that he was inside the apartment, that he was armed with a machine gun, and that there was a baby in the apartment with him ( see, e.g., People v. Cruz, 149 A.D.2d 151, 160; see also, People v. Green, 182 A.D.2d 704).
The defendant's remaining contention is without merit.
Thompson, J. P., Santucci, Friedmann and Florio, JJ., concur.