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DE: Gunshot and scream from inside was exigent circumstance for warrantless entry

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Police surrounded a house in Delaware looking for a suspect in a NYC shooting. After two officers left to get a search warrant, sounds of a possible shot from inside and a baby's "blood curdling" scream justified an emergency entry. Blake v. State, 2008 Del. LEXIS 288 (June 24, 2008): While the officers were on their way to apply for a search warrant, one of the NYPD detectives saw an individual in the apartment, later identified as Blake, raise the window screen in one of the windows. Blake pointed a handgun at him and challenged the officers to shoot him. The detective relayed by cell phone to the officers at the front door of the apartment that the person inside had a gun. The detectives who had left to get a search warrant were called back to the scene...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on June 29, 2008 (boomark / email).