BARNES, J.
Recently, in Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 129 S. Ct. 1710 (2009), the Court considered the search incident to arrest exception where the defendant had been arrested, handcuffed, and placed in the back of a patrol car and officers searched his car, finding a gun and cocaine. There were no passengers in his car, and bystanders had also been arrested and placed in police cars. The Court noted that the search incident to arrest exception “derives from interests in officer safety and evidence preservation. . . .” Gant, 556 U.S. at 332, 129 S. Ct. at 1716 (citing in part Chimel, 395 U.S. at 763, 89 S. Ct. at 2040). The Court clarified that “[p]olice may search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant’s arrest only if the arrestee is within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search or it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest.” Gant, 556 U.S. at 332, 129 S. Ct. at 1723. “When these justifications are absent, a search of an arrestee’s vehicle will be unreasonable unless police obtain a warrant or show that another exception to the warrant requirement applies.” Id. at 332, 129 S. Ct. at 1723-24. The Court concluded that the search incident to arrest exception did not justify the search of the defendant’s vehicle.
Here, the State contends that Stark was “within reaching distance of the passenger compartment” and was “relatively unsecured,” but we do not find this argument convincing. Appellee’s Br. p. 6. At the time of the search, Stark was out of the car and was handcuffed. However, the circumstances here are different than the circumstances in Gant. In Gant, the defendant was alone in his car when he was arrested, and the vehicle was searched after he and some bystanders were handcuffed and placed in police cars. Here, although Stark was removed from the vehicle and handcuffed, three other unsecured persons remained in the vehicle. Indiana courts have not encountered a situation like this since the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Gant, but other courts have.
. . . .
Davis, Goodwin-Bey, and Young indicate that, where unrestrained passengers remain in a vehicle, a search of the vehicle incident to a defendant’s arrest is permissible to alleviate officer safety concerns and to prevent the destruction of evidence. We find this analysis persuasive. The Court in Gant emphasized the officer safety basis for the search incident to arrest exception. Gant, 556 U.S. at 332, 129 S. Ct. at 1716. The three passengers here were unsecured during Officer Shockey’s arrest of Stark, Stark had behaved suspiciously regarding his jacket, and they were in a high crime area. An objective officer considering these facts would have been warranted in conducting a search of the vehicle incident to Stark’s arrest under Gant’s officer safety considerations. [Footnote omitted.] . . . The search of the vehicle incident to Stark’s arrest was permissible under Gant, and the trial court properly denied Stark’s motion to suppress.
KIRSCH, J., and BRADFORD, J., concur.