CRONE, J.
On August 6, 2008, at approximately 2:50 a.m., Deputy Carey Coney of the Noble County Sheriff’s Department was on patrol in his fully marked police cruiser. Deputy Coney was following behind a white jeep on U.S. Route 33 when it turned westbound on County Road 100 South. The jeep then turned into a driveway, and Deputy Coney drove past the driveway and pulled into another driveway down the road. The jeep then backed out of the driveway and continued westbound on 100 South. Deputy Coney again began to follow the jeep, and he observed the jeep swerve left of the center of the road and then turn into a different driveway. Deputy Coney drove past that driveway and pulled into the next driveway. Deputy Coney positioned his cruiser about 250 feet up the driveway so that it was facing the street. Deputy Coney turned off his lights and turned on his radar gun. The jeep pulled out of the driveway in which it had stopped and proceeded westbound on 100 South. Deputy Coney’s radar gun indicated that the jeep was traveling at an exceptionally slow rate of twenty-six miles per hour in a fifty-five mile per hour zone. The jeep then pulled into the same driveway where Deputy Coney was parked within ten feet of the police cruiser so that the two vehicles were facing each other. The driver of the jeep, Reinhart, began yelling out his window at Deputy Coney. Deputy Coney shined his spotlight at Reinhart’s vehicle and noticed that there was also a male passenger in the car. At this point, concerned about the situation and his safety, Deputy Coney ordered Reinhart to back up his vehicle. Reinhart complied and pulled back out onto the county road.
Deputy Coney radioed for backup and followed Reinhart’s vehicle, hoping to reach a better lit area. After Reinhart turned onto U.S. Route 33 South, Deputy Coney activated his emergency lights to initiate a traffic stop. Reinhart pulled his vehicle to the side of the road.
With his weapon drawn and standing quite a distance back from Reinhart’s vehicle, Deputy Coney instructed Reinhart to turn off the motor and exit the vehicle. At gunpoint, Deputy Coney ordered Reinhart to walk to the back of the vehicle and to get on his knees with his hands on the back of his head, fingers interlaced. Reinhart stayed in that position for a short period of time. When the passenger of Reinhart’s vehicle started to exit the vehicle, Deputy Coney instructed the passenger to stay in the vehicle, which he did. Deputy Coney then ordered Reinhart to lie flat on his stomach with his arms out to the side. Approximately one minute and one-half later, Sergeant Terry Waikel arrived on the scene and handcuffed Reinhart. . . . .
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It is well settled that police officers may stop a vehicle when they observe minor traffic violations. Jackson v. State, 785 N.E.2d 615, 619 (Ind. Ct. App. 2003), trans. denied. Reinhart concedes that the initial traffic stop here was a valid Terry investigatory stop based upon the fact that Deputy Coney observed his vehicle cross left of center. However, Reinhart argues that the initial stop was converted to an arrest requiring probable cause when Deputy Coney ordered him out of his vehicle at gunpoint and instructed him to lay flat on the ground, or, at the very least, when Sergeant Waikel placed him in handcuffs.
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As part of a valid Terry stop, the investigating officer is entitled to take reasonable steps to ensure his own safety, including ordering a detainee to exit the vehicle. Bentley v. State, 846 N.E.2d 300, 307 (Ind. Ct. App. 2006), trans. denied. However, in this case, Deputy Coney did much more than merely order Reinhart to exit the vehicle. Deputy Coney drew his weapon, ordered Reinhart to exit the vehicle at gunpoint, and, while the laser sight of his gun was fixed on Reinhart, Deputy Coney ordered Reinhart to his knees with his hands behind his head, fingers interlaced. Reinhart stayed in this position for more than a minute before Deputy Coney ordered him to then lie flat on the road behind his vehicle with his arms out to his sides. Still at gunpoint, Reinhart stayed in this position for more than another minute before Sergeant Waikel arrived and handcuffed Reinhart. The searches of Reinhart’s person, the officers observation of Reinhart’s intoxication (smell of alcohol, blood-shot eyes, and slurred speech), and subsequent portable breath test all occurred after Reinhart was handcuffed.
This court has held that “[h]olding a person at gunpoint certainly restrains his liberty of movement and is a clear example of arrest,” especially when police have no reason to believe that a suspect is armed. See Taylor v. State, 464 N.E.2d 1333, 1335 (Ind. Ct. App. 1984) (action of holding defendant at gunpoint constituted arrest when police had no reason to believe defendant was armed); see also Williams v. State, 630 N.E.2d 221, 224 (Ind. Ct. App. 1994) (ordering defendant to exit vehicle and lie on ground at gunpoint constituted arrest). In addition, placing a person in handcuffs may convert an investigatory stop into an arrest depending upon the totality of the circumstances. Payne v. State, 854 N.E.2d 1199, 1204-05 (Ind. Ct. App. 2006), trans. denied. [Footnote omitted.]
As noted by the State, in Willis v. State, 907 N.E.2d 541, 545 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009), we recently concluded that an investigatory stop was not converted to an arrest even though police officers held the defendant at gunpoint and handcuffed him. However, the police officers in Willis faced unique circumstances quite distinguishable from those circumstances faced by the officers in the instant case. In Willis, police officers responded to a dispatch of an altercation between two African-American males, one of whom was reported to have been holding a gun to the head of the other. Id. at 543. When officers arrived at the scene, they saw the defendant, who was African-American, standing on the sidewalk with another African-American male. Officers drew their guns, approached the men, ordered the men to kneel with their hands raised, and handcuffed the men before conducting pat-down searches for weapons. Under those facts, the police had a reasonable belief that the defendant was armed, and therefore we concluded that it would be unreasonable to expect a police officer to approach the suspect without his gun drawn because the risk to the officer’s safety is simply too great. Id. at 546. Similarly, the totality of the circumstances justified the use of handcuffs during the brief detention only to permit the officers to determine if the suspect was, in fact, concealing a weapon. Id. Accordingly, we held that the police conduct did not convert the investigatory stop into an arrest “under the facts facing the officers in this case.” Id.
Unlike in Willis, the facts presented here indicate that what may have begun as a Terry investigatory stop was quickly converted to an arrest requiring probable cause. “ [A] seizure that is lawful at its inception can violate the Fourth Amendment if its manner of execution unreasonably infringes interests protected by the Constitution.” Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 407 (2005). Deputy Coney’s purported purpose in stopping Reinhart’s vehicle was to investigate a possible drunk driver. While Deputy Coney testified that, at the time of the stop, he was concerned with his safety based upon Reinhart’s earlier behavior of pulling into the third driveway and yelling out the window, there is no evidence suggesting that Reinhart engaged in any behavior which could have led to a specific reasonable inference that he was armed with a weapon. Therefore, under the circumstances, Deputy Coney’s action of ordering Reinhart to exit the vehicle at gunpoint was excessive.
Even if we were to find some reasonable justification for Deputy Coney to initially order Reinhart out of his vehicle with his gun drawn, we believe that the totality of the circumstances did not justify what happened next. The video recording of the stop clearly shows that not only did Reinhart immediately stop his vehicle in response to Deputy Coney’s emergency lights, but also that after his vehicle was stopped, Reinhart obediently exited his vehicle and calmly complied with all of Deputy Coney’s instructions. Again, Reinhart gave no indication that he was armed or dangerous. Nevertheless, with the laser sight of Deputy Coney’s gun prominently fixed on him, Reinhart was ordered first to kneel with his hands behind his head for a period and then lie face down on the ground for an additional period of time while waiting for the second police officer to arrive. Reinhart was then handcuffed before he was searched twice. We believe that a reasonable person in Reinhart’s position would not have believed himself to be free to leave but instead would have considered his freedom of movement to have been restrained to the degree associated with a formal arrest. See Loving, 647 N.E.2d at 1125-26.
While we are mindful of the significant danger faced by police officers during traffic stops, we must balance the interests of officer safety with the privacy interests protected by the Fourth Amendment in requiring law enforcement to use the least intrusive means necessary to investigate a traffic stop. See Wilson v. State, 745 N.E.2d 789, 792 (Ind. 2001). Under the facts presented, this was more than a minimal deprivation of Reinhart’s liberty of movement necessary to confirm or dispel Deputy Coney’s suspicion that Reinhart was operating a vehicle while intoxicated. The police officers’ behavior in this case exceeded the scope of a Terry stop and became an arrest without probable cause. . . . Because the officers here lacked probable cause to arrest Reinhart prior to their seizure of the marijuana evidence and prior to obtaining evidence that Reinhart was indeed operating a vehicle while intoxicated, the trial court abused its discretion when it admitted evidence obtained following the invalid arrest. . . . Accordingly, we reverse Reinhart’s convictions.
BAKER, C.J., and DARDEN, J., concur.