BRADFORD, J.
In this prosecution of Appellee-Defendant Johnnie McCaa for one count of Class A misdemeanor Operating a Vehicle While Intoxicated (“OWI”) in a Manner that Endangers Another Person, [footnote omitted] Appellant-Plaintiff the State of Indiana appeals from the trial court’s grant of McCaa’s motion to suppress evidence. After an initial stop of McCaa for erratic driving, police directed McCaa to move his semi-trailer truck to another location for further investigation. The State contends that the trial court erred in granting McCaa’s motion to suppress evidence generated following the initial stop. We reverse and remand with instructions.
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Deputy Shufflebarger had the driver, McCaa, exit the truck. Sergeant Cothran, who had parked behind the truck on the right side of the driving lane, approached and spoke with McCaa. Sergeant Cothran asked McCaa about his erratic driving, and McCaa said that he had been eating his lunch and had “spilled [his] pop,” which had caused him to drive off of the roadway. Tr. p. 16. Sergeant Cothran observed a sandwich wrapper and a spilled soft drink can on the floor in the cabin of the truck. During the initial encounter with McCaa, which lasted no more than one minute, Sergeant Cothran did not notice any slurred speech, glassy or bloodshot eyes, or manual dexterity problems. According to Sergeant Cothran, a typical stop of a truck due to the sort of erratic driving involved here would require approximately ten to fifteen minutes.
Sergeant Cothran decided to continue the investigation because he was not certain that McCaa’s explanation for his erratic driving was true and was concerned that McCaa might be suffering from a medical condition such as low blood sugar. Sergeant Cothran decided to move the investigation to a gas station approximately two miles farther down U.S. 41 because of “a downpour of rain[,]” the truck was blocking the only open lane of traffic, the gas station had adequate room to park the truck, and a medical crew was waiting there, having been called in to assist with the accident if necessary. Tr. p. 27. According to Sergeant Cothran, the truck would have been (1) in the way if it had been moved just ahead of the crash scene, (2) on the north side of a hill if it had been moved approximately one-eighth of a mile, and (3) on the south side of a hill if it had moved moved approximately one-half of a mile. During the drive to the gas station, Sergeant Cothran observed McCaa drive his truck off the roadway three more times.
Once inside the gas station, Sergeant Cothran conducted the horizontal-gaze-nystagmus, one-leg-stand, and walk-and-turn field sobriety tests (“FSTs”) on McCaa, all of which he failed. McCaa took a portable breath test for blood alcohol concentration, which registered 0.00. Sergeant Cothran detained McCaa at the gas station for approximately twenty minutes. Sergeant Cothran took McCaa to a hospital where, pursuant to a search warrant, a urine sample was ultimately collected. [Footnote omitted.]
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Although we consider it a somewhat close call, we conclude that Sergeant Cothran was still entitled to detain McCaa for further investigation at the time he told McCaa to move his truck to the gas station. When Sergeant Cothran was speaking with McCaa for between thirty seconds and one minute, McCaa offered a seemingly plausible explanation for his erratic driving and exhibited no outward signs of impairment. A reasonable person, however, would have been entitled to doubt McCaa’s story. First, although plausible, the story was undeniably self-serving and therefore suspect. We will not adopt the rule that reasonable suspicion vanishes as soon as a suspect offers a plausible, innocent explanation for his seemingly criminal behavior.
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We also cannot conclude that the absence of obvious signs of impairment, at least in this case, was sufficient to dispel reasonable suspicion. First, Sergeant Cothran was in a position to observe McCaa for no more than one minute before telling him to move his truck, when a typical traffic stop for erratic driving of a semi-trailer truck takes approximately ten to fifteen minutes. It seems clear that Sergeant Cothran simply did not have enough time during the initial stop to fully investigate the cause of McCaa’s erratic driving, especially when his attention was divided by his concern for the blocked traffic on a major highway. Moreover, we cannot ignore the fact that there are many substances other than alcohol that can render one unfit to drive. The mere fact that evidence of alcohol is missing does not demonstrate that a person is not intoxicated on some other substance, such as heroin. We therefore conclude that, under the unusual circumstances of this case, reasonable suspicion justifying further investigation was not dispelled by Sergeant Cothran’s initial encounter with McCaa.
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While we have concerns regarding Sergeant Cothran’s actions in this case, we do not think they qualify as outrageously dangerous. Unlike in Osborne, police had a fair measure of control over this situation. Sergeant Cothran and another officer followed McCaa as he drove to the gas station, and there was no reason to believe that McCaa would attempt flight, as he had already stopped for police once. Also unlike in Osborne, there was very little chance of McCaa’s truck encountering other traffic as he drove to the gas station, because all other southbound traffic had been stopped behind him, and the traffic in front had had time to drive ahead. In other words, to the extent that McCaa’s driving posed a risk, it was essentially limited to the risk that he would run his truck off of the roadway but not that he would run it into another vehicle. [Footnote omitted.]
KIRSCH, J., concurs.
BARNES, J., concurs with opinion:
I begrudgingly concur here. I respect Judge Bradford’s analysis, but write to emphasize that only the unique and rare circumstances at play in this case allow me to vote to concur. If police had not been forced to initially pull McCaa over at a location that caused him to block all traffic on a well-traveled highway, which necessitated having McCaa continue driving to a different location so that FSTs could safely be administered, my vote might not be the same. No mistake should be made that law enforcement officers could or should allow a person to drive a vehicle, observe the driver, and buttress their probable cause because of these observations. These circumstances are the proverbial “once in a lifetime,” fortunately for police.