RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT AND MENACING A POLICE OFFICER CONVICTIONS WERE AGAINST THE WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department reversed two of defendant’s convictions as against the weight of the evidence.  Defendant was charged with reckless endangerment first degree and menacing a police officer. It was alleged defendant fired a weapon during a foot chase. The two officers heard a gunshot but no bullet or casing was found:

… [T]he jury would have had to resort to sheer speculation to find that defendant displayed or fired a weapon, much less that he fired a weapon intentionally. The officers’ testimony that they “heard” a gunshot from some distance away does not prove beyond a reasonable doubt, for purposes of the menacing charge, that defendant visually displayed the weapon that discharged the shot. Nor does such testimony prove beyond a reasonable doubt, for purposes of the reckless endangerment charge, that the shot was fired toward the officers and thereby created a grave risk of death to them. Indeed, the second officer’s testimony that he “believed” that defendant had shot at the officers is speculative and is contradicted by his contemporaneous statement that the gun might have discharged accidentally. People v Thomas, 2020 NY Slip Op 03318, Fourth Dept 6-12-20