| People v Lacy |
| 2013 NY Slip Op 01458 [104 AD3d 422] |
| March 7, 2013 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| The People of the State of New York,Respondent, v Donald Lacy, Appellant. |
—[*1] Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Sheila L. Bautista of counsel), forrespondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Edward J. McLaughlin, J., atsuppression hearing; Roger S. Hayes, J., at plea and sentencing), rendered December 4,2009, convicting defendant of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, andsentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of seven years, unanimouslyaffirmed.
The court properly denied defendant's suppression motion. Late at night, the policereceived a report of shots fired. Five minutes later the officers received a second reportdescribing an armed black man, wearing a blue and white shirt, two blocks from thelocation specified in the first report. Several minutes after that, the police observeddefendant, who matched the radioed description, with two or three other men, on adeserted street just two blocks from the location specified in the second radiotransmission.
It was plainly reasonable to conclude that the two calls were related. The spatial andtemporal proximity to the reported firing of shots, and the fact that defendant matchedthe description, gave rise to a founded suspicion that defendant might be the person whohad fired the shots. The general description was at least sufficient under thecircumstances to warrant a common-law inquiry (see People v Montilla, 268AD2d 270 [1st Dept 2000], appeal dismissed 95 NY2d 830 [2000]).
The two officers were in uniform, and were both sitting in the front seat of anunmarked Crown Victoria. When the officers drove toward defendant the wrong way ona one-way street, defendant immediately fled before the police could even approach himto make an inquiry. This elevated the level of suspicion to reasonable suspicion,justifying pursuit (see e.g. People v Pines, 281 AD2d 311 [1st Dept 2001],affd 99 NY2d 525 [2002]). The circumstances permitted the officers toreasonably infer that defendant fled because he realized he was in the presence of thepolice. We have repeatedly observed that the circumstances of a case may indicate that asuspect recognized the police, even where the officers were neither in uniform nor in amarked car (see People vCollado, 72 AD3d 614 [1st Dept 2010], lv denied 15 NY3d 850 [2010],and cases cited therein). Concur—Tom, J.P., Mazzarelli, Andrias, DeGrasse andRomán, JJ.