In New York v. Quarles (1984) 467 U.S. 649, a woman reported to police officers that she had been raped by a man, gave a physical description of the man, and said that she had just seen him enter a nearby supermarket carrying a gun. ( New York v. Quarles, supra, 467 U.S. at pp. 651-652.) The officers apprehended the defendant and, upon finding no gun on him, asked the defendant where the gun was. ( Id. at p. 652.) The defendant told the officers where the gun was and pointed out where he had left it. (Ibid.) The officers found the gun. (Ibid.) The woman flagged down police and reported to them that she had just been raped and that her gun-carrying assailant fled into a supermarket. (467 US at 651-652.) A police officer apprehended the alleged attacker and, upon discovering his empty shoulder holster, asked him where the gun was--without providing the suspect Miranda warnings. The attacker, already handcuffed, nodded in the direction of some empty cartons and said, "the gun is over there." (Id. at 652.) The officer then asked him other questions concerning the purchase and ownership of the gun, which the perpetrator answered. (Id.) The trial court excluded evidence of the gun and the defendant's statement about the gun because the officers had not given the defendant warnings required by Miranda before asking about the gun. ( New York v. Quarles, supra, 467 U.S. at pp. 652-653.) The United States Supreme Court reversed the trial court's ruling, holding that the facts of the case warranted "a 'public safety' exception to the requirement that Miranda warnings be given before a suspect's answers may be admitted into evidence, and that the availability of that exception does not depend upon the motivation of the individual officers involved." ( Id. at pp. 655-656.) The defendant, who had been identified as an armed rapist, was pursued through a market by police and apprehended. The defendant was frisked and an empty shoulder holster was found. After the defendant was handcuffed, but before he was informed of his Miranda rights, the arresting officer asked him where the gun was. The defendant said, " 'the gun is over there,' " indicating some nearby empty cartons. ( Quarles, supra, 467 U.S. at pp. 651-652.) The Supreme Court held that where police questioning is prompted by a legitimate concern for public safety, statements made by defendants who are subjected to such questioning are not subject to exclusion under Miranda. In reaching this conclusion, the Court reasoned that requiring Miranda warnings in such situations could deter defendants from responding and thereby place the public at risk. ( Quarles, supra, 467 U.S. at pp. 657-658.)Before reciting the Miranda warnings, the police asked the defendant where the gun was located, and the defendant showed them. After the police retrieved the weapon, they advised the defendant of his Miranda rights. The defendant claimed his statement directing the police to the gun, elicited prior to the Miranda warnings, was the product of custodial interrogation violative of Miranda and therefore inadmissible. The trial court agreed and excluded the defendant's statement directing the police to the gun, also excluding the gun itself and subsequent statements as illegal fruits of the Miranda violation. On appeal, the United States Supreme Court reversed, holding that the rationale of Miranda does not require its application in circumstances where police officers must ask questions reasonably prompted by public safety. The court concluded that 'the need for answers to questions in a situation posing a threat to the public safety outweighs the need for the prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination', but held that the exception for such a situation must be circumscribed by the exigency that justifies the exception, thus authorizing the police to engage in questioning only to the extent 'necessary to secure their own safety or the safety of the public . . . .'" The United States Supreme Court held that "there is a 'public safety' exception to the requirement that Miranda warnings be given before a suspect's answers may be admitted into evidence," regardless of the officer's actual motivation for making inquiries. In Quarles, the officers chased down a rape suspect who reportedly was carrying a gun. After finding a shoulder holster on the suspect, the police handcuffed him and asked where the gun was. Nodding in the direction of some empty cartons, the suspect responded, "'the gun is over there,'" where the police indeed found the gun. The Supreme Court reversed the exclusion of the gun and his statement, reasoning that for the sake of public safety and their own safety, police in apprehending a suspect who they have reason to believe placed a gun in the building or nearby may ask as to the whereabouts of that gun without first giving a Miranda warning. "The need for answers to questions in a situation posing a threat to the public safety outweighs the need for the prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination." The Court recognized a narrow "'public safety' exception to the requirement that Miranda warnings be given before a suspect's answers may be admitted into evidence". In Quarles, a woman reported to a police officer that a man with a gun had raped her and entered a grocery store. In the store, the officer saw a man matching the description of the suspect and handcuffed him. After a frisk search revealed no gun, the officer asked him where the gun was located. The man nodded toward some empty cartons and responded, "the gun is over there." 467 U.S. at 652. The Supreme Court held that "there is a 'public safety' exception to the requirement that Miranda warnings be given before a suspect's answers may be admitted into evidence, and . . . the availability of that exception does not depend upon the motivation of the individual officers involved." Quarles, 467 U.S. at 655-66. This exception is established when the evidence proves "an objectively reasonable need to protect the police or the public from any immediate danger associated with a weapon." Quarles, 467 U.S. at 659 n.8. Applying that exception, the Court ruled that neither the gun nor the statement needed to be suppressed. Quarles, 467 U.S. at 659. In Quarles, the Court implied that a statement otherwise coming within the "public safety" exception will be excluded if it is actually coerced. See 467 U.S. at 658 n.7 (stating that "absent actual coercion by the officer, there is no constitutional imperative requiring the exclusion of the evidence"). The Court noted that the officer "needed an answer to his question not simply to make his case against the defendant but to insure that further danger to the public did not result from the concealment of the gun in a public area." Id. As a matter of policy, the Court stated: We decline to place officers . . . in the untenable position of having to consider, often in a matter of seconds, whether it best serves society for them to ask the necessary questions without the Miranda warnings and render whatever probative evidence they uncover inadmissible, or for them to give the warnings in order to preserve the admissibility of evidence they might uncover but possibly damage or destroy their ability to obtain that evidence and neutralize the volatile situation confronting them. Id. at 658-59. In short, the Court concluded that "the need for answers to questions in a situation posing a threat to the public safety outweighs the need for the prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self- incrimination." Id. at 657. The United States Supreme Court set forth the public safety exception to the requirements of Miranda. In Quarles, a woman reported to the police that she had been raped, the assailant had a gun, and that he fled into a supermarket. The police found the defendant inside the supermarket and detained him. In searching the defendant, the police found an empty shoulder holster and asked him where the gun was. The defendant told them it was hidden in a nearby carton. (Quarles, supra, 467 U.S. at pp. 651-652.) The court held that the defendant's statement was not excludable under Miranda. (Quarles, at pp. 655-656.) "The need for answers to questions in a situation posing a threat to the public safety outweighs the need for the prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination. We decline to place officers . . . in the untenable position of having to consider, often in a manner of seconds, whether it best serves society for them to ask the necessary questions without the Miranda warnings and render whatever probative evidence they uncover inadmissible, or for them to give the warnings in order to preserve the admissibility of evidence they might uncover but possibly damage or destroy their ability to obtain that evidence and neutralize the volatile situation confronting them." (Id. at pp. 657-658.) In New York v. Quarles, the "public safety" exception was recognized. In that case, a woman told police she had been raped, that her assailant had a gun, and that the assailant had fled into a supermarket. (Id. at pp. 651-652.) The officers entered the supermarket and apprehended a suspect matching the description provided by the victim. (Id. at p. 652.) The police saw that the suspect was wearing an empty gun holster and asked where the gun was. (Ibid.) The suspect nodded toward empty cartons and said "the gun is over there." (Ibid.) A police officer retrieved the gun, formally placed the suspect under arrest, and read him his Miranda rights. (Ibid.) On these facts, the United States Supreme Court articulated a public safety exception to Miranda and held that the gun and suspect's statement directing the police to the gun were fully admissible. (New York v. Quarles, supra, 467 U.S. at pp. 655-656.) The court noted that "the police in this case, in the very act of apprehending a suspect, were confronted with the immediate necessity of ascertaining the whereabouts of a gun which they had every reason to believe the suspect had just removed from his empty holster and discarded in the supermarket. So long as the gun was concealed somewhere in the supermarket, with its actual whereabouts unknown, it obviously posed more than one danger to the public safety: an accomplice might make use of it, a customer or employee might later come upon it." The court concluded that "the need for answers to questions in a situation posing a threat to the public safety outweighs the need for Miranda's prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination." (Id. at p. 657.) The court was confident that "police officers can and will distinguish almost instinctively between questions necessary to secure their own safety or the safety of the public and questions designed solely to elicit testimonial evidence from a suspect." (Id. at pp. 658-659.)The United States Supreme Court in Quarles stated: "This case presents a situation where concern for public safety must be paramount to adherence to the literal language of the prophylactic rules enunciated in Miranda." (Id. at 653.) In creating a "public safety exception," the Supreme Court stated that the subjective motivation of the individual officer was irrelevant. (Id. at 653, 656.) The Court believed that the concern for the public's safety outweighed the interest of protection of the Fifth Amendment privilege embodied in Miranda. (Id. at 656-657.) The Supreme Court created a "public safety" exception to the Miranda rule under factual circumstances not dissimilar to those at bar. In Quarles (supra), the police entered a supermarket in order to apprehend a man suspected of having committed a rape at gunpoint. Upon spotting him they ordered him to halt, arrested him and placed him in handcuffs. Then, without first administering Miranda warnings, the police asked him where the gun was. The defendant replied, "Over there" and led them to the weapon which the police recovered. It would not be difficult to apply the reasoning that led the Quarles Court to bypass the Miranda requirement in the case at bar. Like the officer in Quarles, Officer Schneider faced a "kaleidoscopic situation ... where spontaneity rather than adherence to a police manual is necessarily the order of the day" (Quarles at 656). They went on to construe the rationale in Miranda (supra), as follows: "Procedural safeguards which deter a suspect from responding were deemed acceptable in Miranda in order to protect the Fifth Amendment privilege; when the primary social cost of those added protections is the possibility of fewer convictions, the Miranda majority was willing to bear that cost" (Quarles 467 U.S. at 657). But when the social cost was more than the "possibility of fewer convictions" (id.), to wit, the threat the gun posed to the safety of the public, the Quarles Court found that the price of the "prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination" (Quarles, 467 U.S. at 657) was too high. The Court refused to place the officer in Quarles in a position where he would have to, in "a matter of seconds," decide whether to ignore Miranda so as to maximize the chances of recovering the gun (but at the price of rendering the gun inadmissible at trial) or to Mirandize the defendant and "possibly damage or destroy their ability to obtain" the gun should the defendant invoke his right to remain silent (Quarles, 467 U.S. at 657-658). The arresting officers were flagged down by a woman claiming that she had been raped by a gun carrying man who had fled into a nearby supermarket. The police pursued the suspect through the supermarket before apprehending him. Upon frisking him, the officer discovered that the man was wearing an empty shoulder holster. The officer asked where the gun was and the suspect directed him to the supermarket carton where he had hidden it. The United States Supreme Court held that notwithstanding the fact that the suspect was in custody and had not been read his Miranda rights before being questioned, the question about the gun's whereabouts was permissible because concern for public safety must be paramount to adherence to the literal language of the prophylactic rules enunciated in Miranda. In Sum, the police were approached by a woman who told them that she had just been sexually assaulted. She provided a description of the man and stated that he had just entered a nearby supermarket and that he was carrying a gun. As the police entered the store, they saw Quarles, who matched the description. Apparently seeing the police, Quarles ran toward the rear of the store and disappeared from view for a time. When he was finally apprehended, Quarles was wearing an empty shoulder holster but possessed no gun. An officer asked him where the gun was. Quarles nodded toward some empty cartons and said, "'the gun is over there.'" (Id. at p. 652.) Although no Miranda warnings had been given prior to the question, the court found that the statement was admissible. The court noted that the police were facing an immediate necessity of locating a gun that a suspect had most likely just concealed somewhere in the store. "It obviously posed more than one danger to the public safety: an accomplice might make use of it, a customer or employee might later come upon it." (Id. at p. 657.) The court held that "on these facts there is a 'public safety' exception to the requirement that Miranda warnings be given before a suspect's answers may be admitted into evidence." (Id. at p. 655.) The court concluded that "the need for answers to questions in a situation posing a threat to the public safety outweighs the need for the prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination. We decline to place officers such as the arresting officer in the untenable position of having to consider, often in a matter of seconds, whether it best serves society for them to ask the necessary questions without the Miranda warnings and render whatever probative evidence they uncover inadmissible, or for them to give the warnings in order to preserve the admissibility of evidence they might uncover but possibly damage or destroy their ability to obtain that evidence and neutralize the volatile situation confronting them." (Id. at pp. 657-658.) Thus, "Quarles teaches that where questions are reasonably directed to defusing a situation which threatens the safety of either police officers or members of the general public, a suspect's answers are admissible in evidence, even if the questions were not preceded by Miranda warnings, and even if they happened to elicit an incriminating response."