Handcuffing Defendant Constituted an Arrest/Defendant’s Actions Did Not Justify Use of Handcuffs

The First Department, contrary to the suppression-hearing court, determined the act of handcuffing the defendant constituted an arrest.  [The matter was sent back to allow the hearing court to determine whether a radio transmission from a fellow officer provided probable cause for the arrest, an issue the hearing court had not ruled upon.]:

…[W]e reject the People’s argument that defendant was not under arrest at the point when he was handcuffed. Although the use of handcuffs is not dispositive of whether an investigatory detention on reasonable suspicion has been elevated to an arrest, handcuffing is permissible in such a detention only when justified by the circumstances (see People v Acevedo, 179 AD2d 465, 465-66 [1st Dept 1992], lv denied 79 NY2d 996 [1992]). In this case, the police had no reason to believe that defendant was either armed or dangerous. Nor was there any indication on the record that defendant offered any resistance prior to the handcuffing, or gave the police any reason to believe that he might flee. The fact that defendant was “a little resistant” when told to put up his hands is not, on its own, sufficient to establish that the officers had any difficulty restraining defendant. Rather, like Acevedo, this case presents a situation in which the officers’ initial use of handcuffs was not warranted by the threat confronting them…, so that the detention exceeds the proper bounds of an intrusion made on less than probable cause. People v Blanding, 2013 NY Slip Op 07692, 1st Dept 11-19-13