Court Opinion

ID: 9536637
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:04:06.718944+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:54:55.060996
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
POWELL, Judge.
In petition for rehearing it is urged that the arrest of the defendant Shetsky was unlawful and that the evidence of officer Biggs should have been stricken and suppressed as requested by counsel;' that this question was overlooked by this court and should be squarely passed upon. This was not urged in oral argument or in defendant’s brief but will be considered at this time.
It will be noted from the opinion that officer Biggs in the performance of *158his duties as an officer of the Tulsa police department was patrolling. the streets of Tulsa in the nighttime (about 3 A.M.) in a patrol car, so marked, and equipped with a whirling red light, short wave radio, etc., and as he approached Iverson’s store located at 1650 East Twenty-first Street, he noticed a green Chrysler four-door automobile parked in front of the store, in the off-street parking. The turtle back was up, and he noticed that the rear of the car was crammed full of some kind of goods or articles not immediately indentifiable. Thus the officer was confronted by an unusual situation. At this point he did not have grounds to make an arrest, but it was certainly within the province of his duties to require the operators of the vehicle to identify themselves under such peculiar circumstances. The officer was in a place where he had a right to be, at the time he was confronted with the facts ’ stated. The occupants of the vehicle did not take time to close the turtle back of their car, but within ten seconds commenced to speed away. ' The officer had a right to follow and observe. Griffin v. State, 90 Okl.Cr. 90, 210 P.2d 671. He did just that. The defendant and his companions soon had their car going at a high rate of speed, which would be dangerous to the travelling public, a fact indicating a violation of the rules of the road as well as municipal speed laws. They were making every effort to dodge and escape having to identify themselves and of course the discovery of the loot protruding from the turtle back of their automobile. Under such circumstances the officer radioed for help. The facts, we conclude justified this. And as stated, officer Biggs was fired upon by the occupants of the fleeing vehicle. Such fact justified officer Biggs in closing in for an arrest.
But before officer Biggs caught up with the green Chrysler in question, the occupants had fired upon officers Norman and Hicks who had placed their car across the intersection of Twenty-first Street and Harvard.
After the Chrysler was forced to stop by reason of the two right tires being shot down, the defendant and his companions got out of the Chrysler with their hands up. The officers could see that the goods with which the turtle back of the Chrysler was stuffed consisted of expensive furs. The officers were justified in closing in on the Chrysler and arresting the occupants for speeding and for shooting with intent to kill, etc. Subsequently they were justified in filing charges of burglary in the second degree by reason of the facts set out in our opinion in this case.
If such was not the law, officers employed to protect the lives and property of the public would be so handicapped and hedged in as to render impotent their efforts at law enforcement. No honest citizen under the circumstances as in this case could object to identifying himself by his driver’s license, social, security card, or some other means. Where he seeks escape from this reasonable procedure and violates the law in doing so, even firing upon the-officers in a plainly marked ’ police car, such conduct justifies and requires his arrest.-
The petition for rehearing must be and the same is denied, and the Clerk of this court is directed to issue mandate forthwith.
JONES, P. J., and BRETT, J.,- concur.