SEIZURE OF DEFENDANT WAS BASED UPON AN ANONYMOUS TIP, SEIZED EVIDENCE SHOULD HAVE BEEN SUPPRESSED (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department, reversing the relevant convictions, determined the police officer effectively seized defendant by blocking defendant’s car based upon an anonymous tip. The evidence seized from the car should have been suppressed:

The conviction of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree arises from a police encounter during which an officer received information from an anonymous 911 call that drugs were being sold out of a vehicle. The officer arrived on the scene and observed a legally parked vehicle matching the description given by the anonymous caller and further observed defendant in a fully reclined position in the driver’s seat. The officer parked his patrol car alongside defendant’s vehicle in such a manner as to prevent defendant from driving away and, as the People stipulated in their post-hearing memorandum, the officer thereby effectively seized the vehicle. We agree with defendant that the police lacked reasonable suspicion to justify the initial seizure, and thus County Court erred in refusing to suppress both the tangible property seized, i.e., the weapon and marihuana found in the vehicle, and the statements defendant made to the police at the time of his arrest … . Based on the anonymous tip and defendant’s otherwise innocuous behavior … , the officer had, at most, a “founded suspicion that criminal activity [was] afoot,” which permitted him to approach the vehicle and make a common-law inquiry of its occupants ,,, . The officer did not make any “confirmatory observations” of the criminal behavior reported by the 911 caller … and therefore did not have “a reasonable suspicion that [defendant] was involved in a felony or misdemeanor” to justify the seizure … . People v Williams, 2019 NY Slip Op 08048, Fourth Dept 11-8-19