People v. Crosby

91 A.D.2d 20, 457 N.Y.S.2d 831, 1983 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 16089
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York·Decided January 3, 1983·Published·Cited by 54 cases

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Thompson, J.

Responding within “a minute or less” to an 8:30 p.m. call reporting a holdup at 162 North Main Street in Freeport on the cold winter evening of January 21, 1979, Officer Anthony Giordano arrived at the scene within approximately five minutes of the event. He entered George’s Luncheonette where he found Alice May, the elderly proprietress of the store, lying on the ground, a bullet hole in her forehead. Quickly obtaining information at the scene that described the perpetrators as two black males, one with a blue jacket, one with a dark jacket, one tall and thin, and one wearing purple or maroon pants, Giordano took off in immediate pursuit. After eliminating one direction as a potential area of investigation because nobody was observed running in that direction, Giordano went off in the other direction. After checking the cab station, Giordano went to the platform of the railroad station which was within one-quarter mile of the scene of the shooting and provided an obvious potential means of escape.

When Giordano first reached the platform he did not see anybody, but as he approached the east end of the station, an area not usually occupied at that time because trains were not long enough to reach it at that hour, he observed an individual drop a maroonish jacket to the ground. The east end of the platform housed an elevator shaft building, and when Giordano approached the individual, who was the only person at that location, the person managed to use the building to momentarily evade Giordano. When Giordano circled the building, he found the person, a tall, thin, male black with a purple design on his pants, already heading west on the platform. Giordano had drawn his gun during the stalking of the individual.

[22] Officer Joseph Stephens arrived at George’s Luncheonette shortly after the transmission of the same radio report, and obtained a description of two perpetrators from two witnesses who were talking to Officer Stringer.* One of the perpetrators was alleged to be a tall, thin, black male wearing a maroon coat with a plaid lapel and possibly maroon pants. Acting independently of Giordano, Stephens also went to the railroad station, and on the way there received a description over the police radio that reiterated the maroon coat and pants description.

Arriving at the platform, Stephens observed a person at the east end of the platform wearing a maroon coat with a plaid lapel and maroon pants. He saw the person remove the coat and throw it into a puddle on the platform. As the person headed in a westerly direction on the platform, looking back and walking directly towards Stephens, Stephens observed Giordano emerge from behind the elevator shaft building, trailing the individual. Stephens drew his gun. At this point the individual was placed under arrest.

The individual, defendant Ricky Crosby, now wearing no more than a “shirt-like” jacket on his upper body, was arrested, frisked, and handcuffed within 13 minutes of Giordano’s receipt of the initial call. After receiving his Miranda warnings,' Crosby advised Giordano that “You’re in a lot of trouble because I’m going to sue you. You’ve got the wrong guy.” Explaining the discarded jacket, Crosby stated he had found it on the station and picked it up in order to look through the pockets. Although Crosby insisted he was alone and was returning to Brooklyn, he had no visible means of paying for such a trip. He did not have identification, and his statement that he had a ticket for the trip to Brooklyn was immediately proven false when all that was recovered from his pocket was an already used ticket and some change. Crosby was brought back to the scene of the crime at about 8:50 p.m.

When Crosby was returned to the scene of the crime for a showup, Helen Rydberg and James Boyden were present at the store. Both had been present at 8:25 p.m. when two men pushed their way in and executed an armed robbery. A [23] struggle occurred during the robbery, resulting in the beating of Boyden and the fatal shooting of Alice May. Immediately after the robbery, which lasted about five minutes, Rydberg had called the police “as soon as the two of them had their feet out of the door” and the police “were also at the door immediately”. She remembered one of the perpetrators as about 20 years old, about five feet, six inches tall and wearing something of a maroon color. Rydberg testified at the suppression hearing that she unequivocally identified Crosby at the showup, although there was other testimony that the identification was tentative. Boyden was in a state of shock and failed to make any identification. When Crosby was returned to Officer Giordano so that he could be taken to the First Precinct in Baldwin he stated that he was cold and asked for the return of his previously discarded coat, of which he then admitted ownership. It was now 10:30 p.m.

On the night of the shooting Lisa Hendricks had been waiting at a bus stop across the street from George’s Luncheonette on her way to a skating rink when she engaged in a 10 to 15 minute conversation with two black men, one of whom identified himself as Jamie from Brooklyn. One of the men was about five feet, six inches tall, 22 years old, and wore a tan jacket and sneakers. During the conversation one of the men told her, with reference to the luncheonette, that “they were going to hold the joint up”, but she did not take this statement seriously. She boarded her bus at approximately 8:00 p.m. Later that evening she learned that Alice May had been shot, and she was brought to the precinct some time after 11:00 p.m. After viewing an office which contained Crosby and 8 or 9 other people, some of whom were black, she identified Crosby as one of the two men she had spoken with at the bus stop. She had previously been informed that one of the perpetrators had been caught, and she was told during the viewing to look at a specific side of the room. It was now approximately midnight.

At 1:00 a.m. Detective Thomas DePaolo and John Leahy began questioning Crosby after he agreed to talk with them following a further advisement of the Miranda warnings. Crosby stated that he had come to Freeport with a [24] friend to visit his girlfriend Gwen, but he did not know Gwen’s last name or address, or the name of his cotraveler from Brooklyn. He left Gwen’s home at 8:00 p.m. and went straight to the railroad station where he was .arrested. Crosby insisted his one-way ticket from Brooklyn to Long Island was really a round trip ticket. He admitted ownership of the discarded jacket, which was maroon with plaid around the collar and tan toward the upper portion of the interior. He failed to explain why, on a cold winter evening, he would take the coat off and throw it down on the ground. A spot on one of Crosby’s sneakers was tested for blood after the sneaker was .voluntarily surrendered during this questioning period, and although a positive identification as blood could not be made, the reaction was consistent with that of blood. Crosby agreed to take a polygraph test, and the parties left for Mineóla at approximately 3:00 a.m. for the administering of the test. After their arrival in Mineóla, Crosby changed his mind and refused to take the polygraph test.

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People v. Crosby, 91 A.D.2d 20, 457 N.Y.S.2d 831, 1983 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 16089 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1983).

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