DANIEL S. PEARSON, Judge.
We reverse the order under review which suppressed cocaine seized from the defendant. Contrary to the trial court's view, it is legally inconsequential — although perhaps emotionally provocative — that the seizing police officers entered the grounds of the thirty-unit apartment building by scaling a six-foot high wall at the rear of the property, since it plainly appears from a fair reading of the record that the general public had unimpeded access to the building through the front entrance to the property. Thus, even assuming, arguendo, that a resident (a status which the defendant alleged but did not prove) may have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the common entries, hallways, and spaces of a locked or otherwise secured apartment building, see, e.g., United States v. Carriger, 541 F.2d 545 (6th Cir. 1976); but see United States v. Holland, 755 F.2d 253, 256 (2d Cir. 1985) ("we never have held that the common areas must be accessible to the public at large"); United States v. Eisler, 567 F.2d 814, 816 (8th Cir. 1977) ("expectation of privacy necessarily implies an expectation that one will be free of any intrusion, not merely unwarranted intrusions"); see generally 1 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 2.3(b), at 388-89 cases collected at n. 44 (2d ed. 1987), no resident of the unlocked and unsecured premises and apartment building in the present case could have had such a reasonable expectation in those shared areas. Moreover, the defendant cannot complain that the events leading to the discovery of the cocaine in his possession were unlawful: when a man named Garcia ran from the uniformed officers and threw down a concealed gun in the common hallway, the officers lawfully pursued him to an apartment which Garcia entered; in pursuit of Garcia — now a fleeing felon — they lawfully stepped into the open doorway of the apartment, United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 96 S.Ct. 2406, 49 L.Ed.2d 300 (1976); Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967); and, from that lawful vantage point, they saw the defendant Batista holding and attempting to dispose of a bag of cocaine.
Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.