Summary
In People v White (156 AD2d 741, supra), police officers received a radio report describing the perpetrators of an armed robbery.
Summary of this case from People v. EmerhallOpinion
December 26, 1989
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Jerome Cohen, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
The hearing court correctly denied the defendant's motion to suppress the gun found in the bag which the defendant was carrying when apprehended by the police. The evidence adduced at the hearing established that the police officers received a radio transmission reporting an armed robbery and a description of the perpetrators. As they proceeded to the crime scene, the arresting officer observed the defendant and his companions, who matched the description, and detained them for the purpose of making inquiry.
In People v Tratch ( 104 A.D.2d 503), it was held that the reasonable suspicion possessed by a police officer who stopped the defendant and then frisked him for weapons to protect himself, also warranted the precautionary measure of frisking the shopping bag carried by the defendant which could have contained a gun. Having discovered a vinyl carrying case which was designed to carry a revolver, the police officer was held to have acted reasonably in opening the case and seizing the gun. People v Tratch (supra) was cited with approval by the Court of Appeals in People v Brooks ( 65 N.Y.2d 1021). In Brooks, the court affirmed that where a gun is involved in the crime for which the suspect is validly stopped and frisked, the police officers "are not limited to a patdown of the suspect's person and may examine personal items capable of concealing a weapon within the suspect's grabbable reach `as an incident to an inquiry upon grounds of safety and precaution'" (People v Brooks, supra, at 1023, quoting from People v Pugach, 15 N.Y.2d 65, 69; see also, People v Jones, 138 A.D.2d 746; People v Covert, 134 A.D.2d 444; People v Belk, 100 A.D.2d 908).
It hardly needs to be repeated that the Fourth Amendment is "not a guarantee against all seizures, but only against unreasonable seizures" (United States v Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 682). The police officers were justified in detaining the defendant and his companions for investigative purposes. Since the police officers had been apprised that the perpetrators were armed, their safety concerns warranted a frisk of the bag held by the defendant, which had made a metallic sound when it was dropped by him. When that frisk revealed that the bag contained an object which felt like a gun, it was proper police work for the officer to verify his reasonable belief that the bag contained a gun. The police action in the instant case fully met the reasonableness standard as it was justified at its inception and reasonable in scope (see generally, United States v Sharpe, supra; Terry v Ohio, 392 U.S. 1; People v Hicks, 68 N.Y.2d 234).
The defendant's remaining contentions have not been preserved for appellate review and nothing in the record warrants the exercise of our interest of justice jurisdiction (see, CPL 470.05; People v Charleston, 56 N.Y.2d 886, 887-888; cf., People v Yut Wai Tom, 53 N.Y.2d 44, 55). Mangano, J.P., Bracken, Kooper and Sullivan, JJ., concur.