VAIDIK, J.
Virginia Bloss was hanging curtains in her window when she saw three boys exit the house at 1615 South Arnold Street in South Bend, which was on the opposite side of the vacant lot next to her house. One of the boys fired a gun. The boys then ran back into the house. Bloss dialed 911.
Several police officers from the South Bend Police Department were dispatched to the area “in reference to a shot being fired by some juveniles.” Tr. p. 7. As Officer Jeff Ransberger approached the house at 1615 South Arnold Street, he noted the silhouette of a person in an upstairs room “[p]eering out the window, looking out to see what was going on, [and] mov[ing] back and forth from one side of the window to the other.” Id. at 8. The officers established a perimeter around the house and called for anyone inside the house to come out. Three boys exited the house. The officers patted down the boys and found no weapons. Officer Ransberger asked if anyone remained in the house. The boys said no. One of the boys said, “[I]t wasn’t us with the gun, it wasn’t us with the gun.” Id. at 26. While some of the officers “stayed . . . outside with the juveniles and secured them separately in their patrol vehicles,” id. at 18, other officers entered the house to look for armed or injured parties. In a bedroom on the first floor, Officer David Johnson found a shotgun, in plain view, leaned up against the doorjamb of the closet, and a large gun case next to it. He placed both the shotgun and the gun case on the bed. Officer Johnson opened the gun case and found an AK-47 inside. He then had Officer Stephen Berger monitor the weapons while he continued assisting in the warrantless search of the house. Finding no armed or injured parties, the officers left the house.
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The officers had no warrant when they entered the house and discovered the shotgun. The State contends that the warrantless search was a proper protective sweep. In Maryland v. Buie, the United States Supreme Court defined a protective sweep as “a quick and limited search of premises, incident to an arrest and conducted to protect the safety of police officers or others. It is narrowly confined to a cursory visual inspection of those places in which a person might be hiding.” 494 U.S. 325, 327 (1990). As an incident to arrest officers may, “as a precautionary matter and without probable cause or reasonable suspicion, look in closets and other spaces immediately adjoining the place of arrest from which an attack could be immediately launched.” Id. at 334. A search beyond those parameters is permissible only when there are “articulable facts which, taken together with the rational inferences from those facts, would warrant a reasonably prudent officer in believing that the area to be swept harbors an individual posing a danger to those on the arrest scene.” Id.
The parties disagree on whether an arrest is a necessary component of a protective sweep. Taylor argues that an arrest is necessary while the State argues that an arrest is not necessary. An arrest occurs when a police officer interrupts the freedom of the suspect and restricts his or her liberty of movement. Moffitt v. State, 817 N.E.2d 239, 246 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004), trans. denied. We need not decide whether an arrest is a necessary component of a protective sweep because we find the detention of the juveniles in separate patrol vehicles during the warrantless search to be sufficiently analogous to an arrest as it interrupted the freedom of the juveniles and restricted their liberty of movement.
The warrantless search here, which took place beyond the area immediately adjoining the place of the detention, was thus a valid protective sweep only if there were articulable facts which would warrant a reasonably prudent officer in believing that the house harbored an individual posing a danger to those on the scene. The post-conviction court did not err in finding such articulable facts here. At the time the officers entered the house, they were responding to a call that three juveniles had fired a shot. When the officers called for anyone inside the house to come out, three boys exited the house. The officers patted them down but recovered no weapons. One of the boys said, “[I]t wasn’t us with the gun, it wasn’t us with the gun.” These facts support a rational inference that the house harbored an individual armed with the weapon that was fired. See Smith v. State, 565 N.E.2d 1059, 1062 (Ind. 1991) (“’[T]here must be articulable facts which, taken together with the rational inferences from those facts, would warrant a reasonably prudent officer in believing that the area to be swept harbors an individual posing a danger to those on the arrest scene.’” (quoting Buie, 494 U.S. at 334)), overruled on other grounds by McGowan v. State, 674 N.E.2d 174, 175 (Ind. 1996).
The shotgun was thus found in plain view during a valid protective sweep and was therefore admissible. Taylor has failed to show that the trial court would have sustained a Fourth Amendment objection to its admission.
NAJAM, J., and BROWN, J., concur.