Romia S. Bell appeals from the judgment of conviction entered on jury verdicts finding him guilty of trafficking in cocaine and misdemeanor obstruction of a law enforcement officer by fleeing to avoid arrest. For the following reasons, we affirm the conviction for trafficking in cocaine but reverse the conviction for obstruction. 1. The State presented evidence that police officers assigned to the Glynn County —Brunswick Narcotics Enforcement Team worked with a confidential informant to set up a controlled buy of cocaine in the parking lot of a Burger King restaurant. Police observed the informant make a telephone call to set up the buy; searched the informant; provided the informant with money to make the buy, and then followed the vehicle driven by the informant to the parking lot. While conducting surveillance of the buy location from concealed positions, officers saw a vehicle with two occupants drive into the parking lot and park next to the vehicle occupied by the informant. Officers then saw the informant and the front seat passenger in the other vehicle later identified as Bell reach out from the adjacent windows of their respective vehicles and conduct what appeared to be an exchange of money for drugs. Based on all this information, two uniformed police officers, who observed the vehicle occupied by Bell during the interaction with the informant and as it drove away from the parking lot, stopped the vehicle a short distance after it left the parking lot. As the driver of the vehicle exited at the request of one of the officers, the other officer saw Bell slide from the front passenger seat to behind the steering wheel of the vehicle and attempt to put the vehicle in gear and drive away from the scene of the stop. At that point, the officer placed his body through the vehicle window in between Bell and the steering wheel to prevent Bell from driving away. Bell pushed the officer away, exited the vehicle, and encountered the second officer as he tried to flee the scene. As he fled, Bell resisted the efforts of both uniformed officers to place him under arrest. When the officers brought Bell under control and arrested him, they saw a plastic bag containing suspected cocaine fall to the ground from inside the leg of Bell’s pants. A search incident to Bell’s arrest revealed two more bags of suspected cocaine on Bell’s person. Bell thereafter gave a statement to police in which he admitted that he met with the informant in the Burger King parking lot and admitted that the cocaine found on his person belonged to him. A forensic chemist employed at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s State Crime Lab testified that two of the three bags of suspected cocaine were tested at the Lab and that both tested positive for cocaine. The first bag contained a mixture weighing 27.76 grams with a purity of 73.9 percent cocaine, and the second bag contained a mixture weighing 1.51 grams with a purity of 77 percent cocaine.
The evidence was sufficient for the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt: 1 that Bell was guilty of trafficking in cocaine in violation of OCGA § 16-13-31 a 1 by knowingly possessing a mixture weighing 28 or more grams with a purity of 10 percent or more of cocaine, and 2 that Bell was guilty of obstructing a law enforcement officer in violation of OCGA § 16-10-24 a when he knowingly and wilfully obstructed or hindered the officer in the discharge of the officer’s official duties by fleeing to avoid arrest.1 Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U. S. 307 99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560 1979.
