Court Opinion

ID: 9733638
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:12:32.229624+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:42.752533
License: Public Domain

HUDOCK, Judge,
dissenting:
Respectfully, I dissent. I would affirm the trial court’s determination that exigent circumstances existed justifying *198the officers’ non-compliance with the “knock and announce” rule.
As the Commonwealth points out in its brief to this Court, if the record below supports the factual findings of the suppression court and the legal conclusions drawn from those findings, they may not be disturbed on appeal. Commonwealth v. Yerger, 333 Pa.Super. 501, 482 A.2d 984 (1984). Officer Brink testified that based upon his experience, the incidence of finding guns or armed suspects in a drug raid was “quite high”. (N.T. 17). He also had information that Appellant had been arrested approximately two years earlier in a drug raid while in possession of an unregistered, loaded handgun. Based upon these facts I believe the trial court was justified in concluding that the officer could have reasonably believed that this known and previously armed denizen of the drug world would again be armed at the time of the entry in question. Since the record supports his factual findings and legal conclusions, we should not disturb them.
The majority dismisses the Commonwealth’s contention that the officers here could assume that drug dealers routinely possess firearms, citing Commonwealth v. Grubb, 407 Pa.Super. 78, 595 A.2d 133 (1991). I do not believe that Grubb is controlling. In that case our Court refused to take judicial notice of the fact that drug dealers carry weapons so as to, ipso facto, constitute exigent circumstances justifying non-compliance with the “knock and announce” rule. In the case presently before this Court, the Commonwealth does not ask us to take judicial notice, but rather argues that the testimony of the officer as to his personal experience with drug raids and drug dealers justified him in his belief that the defendant and his accomplices might be armed. The trial court apparently accepted this testimony, as we must.
When the actual experience of the officer was coupled with the officer’s knowledge that this very defendant had previously possessed a loaded, unregistered firearm while engaging in his illegal activities, the officers cannot be *199faulted for taking action to guard against the danger they could reasonably conclude was present on the other side of the door. In short, I believe “exigent circumstances” existed under the facts of this case, as found by the trial court, to justify non-compliance with the “knock and announce” rule. Accordingly, I dissent.