Based upon the hearing court's findings of fact and determination of credibility, which we adopt (People v Anderson, 165 A.D.2d 671), defendant's motion to suppress was properly denied. The arresting officer's fear that defendant and her companions would destroy the contraband was reasonable. The contraband was within easy reach of defendant and her companions (cf., People v Knapp, 52 N.Y.2d 689, 696-697), and the arresting officer entered the apartment where the contraband was stored at a time when it appeared that co-defendant Jose Rodriguez, the main target of the investigation, was eluding the officers who had set out to arrest him. Even if the officers could have devised a better plan to arrest the co-defendant, the officers' lack of foresight made the urgency no less a reality. (See, People v Vaccaro, 39 N.Y.2d 468, 473.) Moreover, the fact that the co-defendant did not escape does not mean that the circumstances, as the arresting officer found them, were not exigent.
Concur — Carro, J.P., Ellerin, Wallach, Kupferman and Rubin, JJ.