Jorge Flores and Jose Renteria were jointly indicted along with others for the offenses of possessing methamphetamine, possessing methamphetamine with intent to distribute, and possessing tools used in violating the Georgia Controlled Substances Act. Flores and Renteria filed separate motions to suppress evidence of methamphetamine found when DeKalb County narcotics officers stopped and searched the vehicle Renteria was driving. Finding the initial stop was unreasonable, the trial court granted both motions and the State appeals. We find that the facts collected by the officers during the ongoing investigation they were conducting at the time of the stop gave them a sufficient factual basis to stop Renteria in the vehicle he was driving to investigate the reasonable suspicion that Renteria was in possession of methamphetamine. The trial court erred by finding that the stop was unreasonable and erred by granting the separate motions filed by Renteria and Flores seeking suppression of the methamphetamine found in the search of the vehicle. Accordingly, we reverse.
On July 13, 2001, Renteria and Flores driving separate vehicles had just departed from apartment H-17 of the North Highland Apartments in DeKalb County. At that point, DeKalb narcotics officers had been conducting surveillance on the apartment for about three months. With Flores following Renteria, both vehicles were stopped by narcotics officers about a half mile from the apartment. The stops were made solely on the basis of the officers’s belief that the facts they had gathered in the investigation were sufficient to justify the stop to investigate their suspicion that Renteria and Flores were transporting methamphetamine from the apartment. Renteria concedes that, during the investigatory stop, a police drug dog alerted to the scent of contraband when taken around the exterior and interior of his vehicle, revealing the presence of methamphetamine in the vehicle. The drug dog also sniffed the vehicle driven by Flores, but no drugs were found in that vehicle.
