People v. Geddes

• Decision Date: 24 April 2019
• Docket Number: Ind. No. 35/14,2017–03596
• Citation: 171 A.D.3d 1210,97 N.Y.S.3d 716
• Parties: The PEOPLE, etc., Respondent, v. Joshua GEDDES, Appellant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

171 A.D.3d 1210
97 N.Y.S.3d 716

The PEOPLE, etc., Respondent,
v.
Joshua GEDDES, Appellant.

2017–03596
Ind. No. 35/14

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department, New York.

Argued - January 17, 2019
April 24, 2019

Thomas R. Villecco, Jericho, NY, for appellant.

Madeline Singas, District Attorney, Mineola, N.Y. (Tammy J. Smiley, Sarah S. Rabinowitz, and Jared A. Chester of counsel), for respondent.

REINALDO E. RIVERA, J.P., SHERI S. ROMAN, SYLVIA O. HINDS–RADIX, HECTOR D. LASALLE, JJ.

DECISION & ORDER

171 A.D.3d 1210

ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed.

The defendant was charged with criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (four counts) and unlawful fleeing of a police officer in a motor vehicle in the third degree. At a suppression hearing, Police Officer Sullivan testified that on December 9, 2013, at approximately 5:56 p.m., he was at the intersection of Linden Boulevard and Elmont Road in Nassau County when he received a radio transmission that a shooting had occurred approximately six blocks from his location. It was reported that a black car with tinted windows, occupied by at least one male, had fled the scene of the shooting. At approximately 6:00 p.m., Sullivan, who had pulled into a gas station at the intersection, observed a black car with dark tinted windows and an apparent bullet hole in the passenger side rear window pull into the gas station. The front windows were rolled down, and Sullivan observed that the vehicle was occupied by two black males. The driver was wearing a black hoodie and a skullcap, and the passenger was slumped in the seat and appeared to be in pain. Upon observing the bullet hole, Sullivan drew his firearm, pointed it at the occupants of the vehicle, and yelled at them, "[p]olice, stop the car." The driver turned his head slightly, but did not stop the vehicle. Sullivan ran alongside the car and continued to yell, "[s]top the car," but the driver ignored Sullivan's commands and quickly accelerated away from him westbound on Linden Boulevard. Sullivan transmitted a description of the vehicle and the direction it fled over the radio, and, moments later, a passing motorist

171 A.D.3d 1211

who had been traveling eastbound on Linden Boulevard told Sullivan that the vehicle Sullivan had been chasing had just crashed about two blocks away.

97 N.Y.S.3d 718

Sergeant Schmaeling of the emergency services unit arrived at the crash scene, which was in the vicinity of 238th Street and Linden Boulevard. He observed that the black car was unoccupied and had one open door, and that there were two handguns and what appeared to be a bag of marijuana inside the car. A witness told the police that the occupants of the car were two short black males in their early 20s wearing skullcaps who had run south on 238th Street. The police broadcast this information over the radio.

The police established a perimeter in the area of 238th Street and Linden Boulevard. Sullivan and two other officers began to search the backyards of the houses along 238th Street, assisted by members of the emergency services and canine units. Schmaeling was supervising the search from the street, and he received a radio transmission reporting that a subject who had sustained a gunshot wound had been taken into custody within approximately 200 feet of Schmaeling's location. Sullivan later identified the subject, Kevin Hoofong, as the person who had been the passenger of the black car.

At around 6:45 p.m., as the canine units were progressing through the yards, Schmaeling...