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THE FACT THAT DEFENDANT WAS PARKED IN A HIGH CRIME AREA NEAR AN APARTMENT COMPLEX AND THE FILED “TRESPASS AFFIDAVIT” BY AN APARTMENT PROPERTY MANAGER, REQUESTING THAT ANYONE ON THE PROPERTY WHO WAS NOT A TENANT BE ARRESTED FOR TRESPASS, DID NOT PROVIDE THE POLICE WITH A “PARTICULARIZED” REASON FOR APPROACHING THE DEFENDANT TO REQUEST INFORMATION; THE COCAINE AND HANDGUN SEIZED UPON THE DEFENDANT’S ARREST SHOULD HAVE BEEN SUPPRESSED; THE INDICTMENT WAS DISMISSED (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department. suppressing evidence seized upon defendant’s arrest and dismissing the indictment. over a two-justice dissent, determined that the police did not have particularized information which justified approaching defendant’s car which was parked near an apartment complex. There was a “trespass affidavit” by an apartment property manager on file with the police department which requested that any person who was not a tenant be arrested for trespass. The police approached defendant, who, it turned out, was a tenant. But based on an officer’s observation of a bag containing a tan substance inside the car, the officers ordered defendant out the car, searched the defendant’s person and car, and seized cocaine and a handgun:

… [T]he officer’s testimony that the apartment complex was in a high-crime area did not justify approaching defendant. The trespass affidavit failed to afford the officers any more particularized reason for approaching defendant. Therein, although the property manager for the apartment complex stated generally that there “was reason to believe that persons are congregating on the . . . property . . . [who] do not reside at said property,” there was no allegation in the trespass affidavit that the property was, for example, “plagued by illegal drug trade” or gang violence … . Indeed, the property manager did not specify any prior or ongoing incidents of criminal activity on the premises, but instead expressed a general belief that persons might be “congregating on the property,” which is a multi-building residential apartment complex, “without [the property manager’s] permission.” The property manager nonetheless also acknowledged in the trespass affidavit that non-residents were often permissibly on the property, such as guests of tenants. Thus, defendant was not “parked at an establishment around which criminal activity was known to occur” … . Further, the officers observed defendant momentary idling in a vehicle in a publicly accessible parking lot on a summer evening outside a residential apartment complex … , not “in a private space restricted by signage and a lock” … . Thus, nothing in the officers’ observation of defendant’s conduct, even considered in light of the assertions in the trespass affidavit, “provided a particularized reason to request information” … . People v Robinson, 2026 NY Slip Op 01693, Fourth Dept 3-20-26

Practice Point: Here the police did not have a “particularized reason” for approaching defendant’s parked car near an apartment complex. The facts that (1) the defendant was parked in a high crime area and (2) an apartment-complex property manager had filed a “trespass affidavit” with the police was not enough to allow the police to approach the defendant to request information.

 

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