THE POLICE MISTAKENLY BELIEVED THE MAN IN A MOTEL ROOM (DEFENDANT) WAS A SUSPECT IN A SHOOTING; AN INFORMANT HAD TOLD THE POLICE THE MAN IN THE ROOM WAS FROM ROCHESTER, HIS NICKNAME WAS “JAY” AND HE “HAD A WARRANT;” WHEN THE MAN LEFT THE ROOM, THE POLICE STOPPED HIS TAXI; THE PEOPLE DID NOT DEMONSTRATE THE LEGALITY OF THE STOP (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department, reversing the denial of defendant’s suppression motion and dismissing the indictment, determined the People did not demonstrate the legality of the defective’s order to stop the taxi in which defendant was a passenger. An informant told the police a man in a motel room was from Rochester, his nickname was “Jay,” and he “had a warrant.” The detective believed the man in the motel room was a suspect in a shooting which occurred a month before. Surveillance was set up and the detective was told a man had left the room and gotten into a taxi. The defective, who did not see the man leave the room, ordered the stop of the taxi: It turned out that defendant was not the shooting suspect. He was charged with possession of a controlled substance:

At the suppression hearing, a police detective testified that he directed the stop of the taxi based on a belief that defendant was in fact a different man whom authorities had identified as a suspect in a shooting that had occurred over a month earlier. …

The detective conceded that he had never seen a still photo of the suspect, that the video of the shooting that he did view lacked detail, and that he was unaware of whether the suspect’s actual height, weight, skin tone, or other specific discernable characteristic were on the arrest warrant for the shooting suspect. Further, the informant never identified the man in the motel room as the shooter, and the vague description given, i.e., that the man was from Rochester, that his nickname was the ubiquitous “Jay,” and that he “had a warrant”, is too generalized to support the reasonable suspicion required for the officers’ stop of the taxi … . … This is also not a case in which the “proximity of the defendant to the site of the crime[ and] the brief period of time between the crime and the discovery of the defendant near the location of the crime” added to the totality of circumstances supporting the detective’s reasonable suspicion … . People v Singleton, 2022 NY Slip Op 01893, Fourth Dept 3-18-22

Practice Point: The police mistakenly thought the man in a motel room (defendant) was a shooting suspect based upon vague and general allegations made by an informant. When he left the motel room, the defendant’s taxi was stopped and he was subsequently charged with possession of a controlled substance. The People did not demonstrate the legality of the stop.