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THE POLICE OBSERVED A GROUP OF PEOPLE CHASING THE DEFENDANT AND ESSENTIALLY JOINED IN WITHOUT ANY KNOWLEDGE OF THE UNDERLYING CIRCUMSTANCES; THE WEAPON SEIZED IN THE STREET STOP SHOULD HAVE BEEN SUPPRESSED (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department, reversing defendant’s criminal possession of a weapon conviction (after trial) and dismissing the indictment, determined the police who participated in the foot chase and street stop of the defendant did not have the requisite “reasonable suspicion.” The police (in civilian clothes) saw a group of people chasing the defendant and essentially simply joined in the chase without any knowledge of the underlying circumstances. The seized firearm should have been suppressed:

… [T]he People failed to meet their burden of establishing the legality of the pursuit of the defendant, as the police lacked reasonable suspicion that the defendant had committed, was committing, or was about to commit a crime … . Neither Hain’s [the officer’s] observation of the defendant running away from a “group of civilians” chasing him, nor the female voice saying “that’s him, he’s getting away, grab him,” without reference to any specific acts, were sufficient to confer reasonable suspicion that the defendant was engaged in criminal activity, as opposed to the defendant being the victim of criminal activity or having no connection to any criminal activity … . Hain acknowledged that “I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on at the time,” and that the group could have been chasing the defendant “for anything.” Further, Hain’s vague testimony that when the group caught up to the defendant, he observed the defendant and a female individual “engaged in some sort of physical altercation,” which he described as “tussling, pulling back and forth at each other,” was insufficient, absent any details, to satisfy the People’s burden of establishing reasonable suspicion that the defendant was engaged in criminal activity. Hain acknowledged that “I don’t know if [the defendant] was defending himself,” and he did not testify that the defendant ever struck the female individual or engaged in any conduct constituting an assault or other criminal activity. Therefore, it cannot be determined from Hain’s testimony elicited at the hearing whether the defendant was merely trying to pull away from the female individual to continue running away after she and the group caught up to him.

Thus, Hain’s observations did not constitute specific circumstances indicative of criminal activity so as to establish the reasonable suspicion necessary to lawfully pursue the defendant, even when coupled with the defendant’s flight … . People v Alberto, 2026 NY Slip Op 01976, Second Dept 4-1-26

Practice Point: Here the police saw a group of people chasing the defendant and joined in without any knowledge of the underlying circumstances. Therefore the street stop was not justified by “reasonable suspicion.”

 

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