In this intеrlocutory appeal, Dusty Reynolds contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress drugs seized by the police at the time of his arrest. He argues that thе police had no reasonable articulable suspicion to justify his detention and thus his flight was lawful, and the subsequent seizure was illegal. For the reasons set forth below, we аffirm.
In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, “the evidence is construed most favorably to uphold the court’s findings and judgment. If there is any evidence to support the trial court’s findings on disputed facts and credibility, they will not be disturbed unless *713 clearly erroneous.” (Punctuation omitted.) Fitz v. State. 1 “However, where the evidence is uncontroverted and no question regarding the credibility of witnesses is prеsented, the trial court’s application of the law to undisputed facts is subject to de novo appellate review.” (Punctuation omitted.) State v. Harris. 2
So viewed, the record shows that on the night of January 24, 2003, police officers were executing a search warrant at the rural residence of David Silvers, located at 174 Circle S Drive in Jasper. While the officers were in the process of executing the warrant, Dusty Reynolds was traveling on Circle S Drive in his truck toward the residence of Danny Silvers, David Silvers’s brothеr. The two Silvers brothers lived near each other near the end of Circle S Drive, but the residences were several hundred yards apart and both possessed sepаrate unpaved driveways. Neither Danny Silvers nor his residence was a subject of the warrant.
As Reynolds’s truck neared Danny’s driveway, his progress was impeded by the officers’ vеhicles that had formed a perimeter around David’s residence. At the same time, several officers approached Reynolds’s truck, identified themselves as lаw enforcement officers, and ordered him to exit the vehicle. Reynolds complied and shortly thereafter, one of the officers noticed a rifle lying on the floor of Reynolds’s truck. The officer yelled “gun” to alert the other officers as to the weapon’s presence, at which point Reynolds started running away from the truсk toward a wooded area. After a short chase, he was apprehended and arrested for obstruction of justice. In addition, the officers found a quantity of methamphetamine within a few feet of where Reynolds was apprehended.
Reynolds was indicted for possession of methamphetamine, 3 obstruction of a law enforcement officer, 4 and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. 5 He filed a motion to suppress the methamphetamine as evidence on the grounds that it was obtained as the result of an illegal stop. Following a hearing, the trial court issued a written order denying Reynolds’s motion. In its order, the trial court found that Reynolds’s vehicle was stopped outside of the curtilage of David Silvers’s residence and thus outside of the areа covered by the search warrant. The trial court’s order also found that prior to Reynolds’s flight, the officers had no reasonable articulable suspicion warranting a search or further detention of Reynolds, but *714 that Reynolds’s subsequent flight provided the suspicion justifying his arrest and the search of his person and vehicle. This interlocutory appeal followed.
1. Reynolds contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the methamphetamine found at the scene of his arrest, arguing that his initial dеtention was unlawful and therefore all of the actions of the officers following that detention were also unlawful. We disagree.
According to
Terry v. Ohio,
6
police-citizen encounters are generally categorized into three tiers: consensual encounters; brief investigatory stops, which require reasonable articulable suspicion; and аrrests that must be supported by probable cause.
Harris,
supra,
It is undisputed that the police subjected Reynolds to a
Terry
stop second-tier encounter: they stopped him and ordered him to exit his vehicle. At that time, the police had no specific articulable facts sufficient to give rise to a reasonable suspicion that he was engaged in criminal conduct. He was not a subject of the search warrant and had not committed any traffic violations as his vehicle approached the Silverses’ residences. Furthermore, as the trial court acknowledged, Reynolds’s vehicle was not within the сurtilage of the residence subject to the search warrant when it was stopped and therefore could not be lawfully detained or searched pursuant to that warrant. See
State v.
Mallard
9
(officer had no articulable suspicion that law had been violated justifying investigative stop of defendants’ vehicle after it left a residence where police were preparing to execute a search warrant); see also
State v. Holmes.
10
While the police, in executing the search, could have legitimately prevented Reynolds’s vehicle from entering the subject property, that is not what happened. Rather, police stopped his vehicle from entering another property
*715
and ordered Reynolds to exit the vehicle in order to question him, which required a reasonable articulable suspicion of criminal conduct they admittedly did not possess. See
Mallard,
supra,
As in Strickland v. Stated 11 however, our analysis does not end here, becausе the methamphetamine at issue was not found in Reynolds’s vehicle or on his person during the course of the improper Terry stop. It was found after Reynolds fled from the officers and allegedly discarded it prior to his apprehension. This Court has previously recognized that
evidence is not impermissibly tainted simply because it would not havе come to light but for the illegal actions of the police. Rather, the more apt question in such a case is whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the еvidence to which the objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primаry taint.
Strickland,
supra,
Howevеr, that is not the action Reynolds took. Instead, the undisputed evidence is that Reynolds fled shortly after the detention began. “[R]egardless of the propriety of an officer’s basis for the execution of a
Terry
traffic investigative stop, attempting to flee from such stop is a separate crime altogether, i.e., fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer.”
Eichelberger,
supra,
“Atrial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress will be upheld if it is right for any reason.” State v. Sims. 14 For the reasons set forth above, we find that the denial of Reynolds’s motion to suppress was proper.
2. In light of our holding in Division 1, supra, that the officers’ initial detention оf Reynolds was not based on any reasonable articulable suspicion but that Reynolds’s flight provided an independent basis for his arrest and the seizure of the methamphetamine, Reynolds’s contention that his flight did not provide the officers with reasonable articulable suspicion is without merit.
Judgment affirmed.
Notes
Fitz v. State,
State v. Harris,
OCGA § 16-13-30.
OCGA § 16-10-24.
OCGA § 16-11-106.
Terry v. Ohio,
Hughes v. Slate,
Smith v. State,
State v. Mallard,
State v. Holmes,
Strickland v. State,
Eichelberger v. State,
Davis v. State,
State v. Sims,