After two officers on routine radio patrol noticed an automobile being driven with no license plates in violation of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 402, they signaled by siren and turret lights for the automobile to pull over. After a five block pursuit, it did so. At this point, it was not unreasonable for one officer to have asked the front seat passenger to exit, as a precautionary measure, "even absent a particularized belief that [this passenger was] armed" ( People v Gil, 211 AD2d 99, 102, citing People v Rodriguez, 167 AD2d 122, lv denied 77 NY2d 843), as another officer questioned the driver about the ownership of the vehicle ( People v Robinson, 74 NY2d 773, cert denied 493 US 966; see, People v Gil, supra).
Upon viewing a bulge in the passenger's jacket, the officer was also justified in conducting a frisk to determine whether the defendant was armed ( People v Miles, 208 AD2d 1089; People v Brunson, 166 AD2d 204), and to shine his flashlight inside the vehicle ( People v Desir, 138 AD2d 236). After determining that the bulge in the defendant's jacket was a walkman, it was still reasonable for the officer to ask the defendant to remain outside the vehicle.
Even assuming for the sake of analysis that a further search inside the vehicle was unreasonable ( see, People v Banks, 85 NY2d 558, 562, cert denied 516 US 868 ["For a traffic stop to pass constitutional muster * * * the seizure must be reasonably related in scope * * * to the circumstances which justified the detention in the first instance (citations omitted)"], we hold that the defendant's act of throwing what appeared to be a "paper or rag", later determined to be a rock-like brick of crack cocaine, to the ground behind the automobile was not "a spontaneous, provoked reaction to the illegality" ( People v Boodle, 47 NY2d 398, 403, cert denied 444 US 969), but instead "an independent act involving [the] calculated risk" (here realized) that the officer would notice his actions and recover the contraband ( People v Boodle, supra, at 404; People v Rosser, 150 AD2d 911, 912-913, lv denied 74 NY2d 746; People v Prewitt, 120 AD2d 551). For this reason, the brick of cocaine and the defendant's spontaneous statements offered immediately thereafter should not have been suppressed.