delivered the Opinion of the Court.
¶1 Ronald W. Britt (Britt) appeals from the denial of his Motion to Suppress Evidence by the Twelfth Judicial District Court, Hill County. We affirm.
¶2 We must address whether the District Court properly denied Britt’s motion to suppress evidencе based upon the police officer’s particularized suspicion to justify an investigative stop.
BACKGROUND
¶3 Pete Kuhr (Kuhr), a Havre area rancher, called the Hill County Sheriffs Department and reportеd that a car with three occupants had been parked five to six miles outside of Havre along a gravel road for most of the day. Kuhr told the dispatcher that he had stopped and asked the occupants if they needed help and the occupants had advised him that everything was okay. The dispatcher relayed the location and license plate number to Deputy Mоnte Reichelt (Reichelt), an officer with 27 years of experience.
¶4 Reichelt arrived at the intersection where the car initially had been reported by the dispatcher apprоximately forty-five minutes after receiving the call. Although the car was not at the intersection, Reichelt did find the car parked to the side of the same gravel road, *3 pointing southbound, and next to а shelter belt of trees. The car drove onto the road as Reichelt approached, proceeded past him, and turned east onto another road toward Havre.
¶5 Reichеlt saw that the car had the same license plate number and noted that a Native American male was driving the car with a Caucasian female passenger. After identifying the car, Reichelt continued on for a short distance until he could turn around and catch up to it. During that brief moment of time, until he came to the comer and turned east himself, Reichelt lost sight of the car behind a shelter bеlt of trees. When he caught up and approached the car, Reichelt observed the car driving near the center of the gravel road, and although he did not specifically observe the occupants do so, he saw that they had switched drivers. Reichelt then turned on his siren and stopped the car. His subsequent search of the car uncovered illegal drugs and drug paraphernаlia.
¶6 The State charged Britt with criminal possession of dangerous drugs, possession of drag paraphernalia, and driving while his license was suspended or revoked. Britt moved to suppress the evidenсe found in his car based on Reichelt’s lack of particularized suspicion to justify the investigatory stop. At the hearing, Reichelt testified about the stop and James Oliver Catt, Jr., a defendant witness who invеstigated the gravel road at issue, also testified. The District Court denied Britt’s motion and Britt entered into a plea agreement reserving his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress evidence. Britt exercises that right in this appeal.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
¶7 We review a district court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence to determine whether the court’s finding that the officer involved had a pаrticularized suspicion to justify the investigatory stop is clearly erroneous.
State v. Steen,
DISCUSSION
¶8 Britt contends that the District Court erred when it denied his motion to supprеss evidence because Deputy Reichelt did not possess
*4
the necessary particularized suspicion to justify an investigative stop. To determine whether such particularized suspicion еxists, the State must show: (1) objective data from which an experienced officer could make certain inferences, and (2) a resulting suspicion that the occupant of the vehicle in questiоn is or has been engaged in some wrongdoing. Section 46-5-401, MCA;
Steen,
¶ 7 (citation omitted). ‘Whether a particularized suspicion exists is a question of fact dependent on the totality of the circumstances surrоunding the investigative stop.”
Steen,
¶ 7 (citation omitted). We evaluate the totality of the circumstances by considering the quantity, or content, and quality, or degree of reliability, of the information available to the officer.
State v. Gilder,
¶9 We preface our discussion with a comment about Reichelt’s testimony that “[t]he driver was a Native American guy and the passenger was [a] little white girl.” Reichelt’s referencе to racial classifications seems gratuitous, at best, in light of the fact that race was not a basis to form a particularized suspicion in this instance. We find no evidence in the record that Rеichelt specifically relied on racial profiling to justify the stop of the car.
See e.g. State v. Belgarde
(1990),
¶10 Britt argues that the objective data Reichelt relied on to form his particularized suspicion does not reconcile with our case law. We disagree. Reichelt investigated a repоrt of a suspicious car parked alongside a gravel road in a remote area. Although Reichelt did not find the car in the precise place it had been reported, he did locаte it in the general vicinity, and it matched the reported car’s license plate numbers. When the car’s occupants saw Reichelt and his patrol car, they pulled out from their parked position and drove toward town. Reichelt conceded that he did not specifically observe the occupants switch places. Nevertheless, he did not consider the brief moment of time when he lost sight of the car to be long enough for the occupants to stop and switch drivers. He therefore inferred that the switch must have occurred while they were driving. Reichelt’s observation оf the *5 car drifting to the middle of the gravel road corroborates his inference that the occupants had switched places while driving. Thus, Reichelt testified, that he believed, based on his 27 years of experience in law enforcement, that the parties switched places when the car drifted to the middle of the road. In any event, Reichelt saw the man driving when he met and passed the car and when he pulled up behind them he “could see that they had switched drivers and [the woman] was driving.”
¶11 Britt counters that enough time elapsed when Reichelt lost sight of the car to allow the occuрants to stop and switch drivers, which in itself would not be an unlawful action. Britt points to testimony and pictures presented at the hearing that demonstrate that the shelter belt of trees blocked Reichelt’s view of the vehicle once it turned east toward Havre. Indeed, the District Court concluded that when the car turned east, Reichelt ‘had to lose sight of them for a short time, perhaps even timе for them to stop the car and change positions.”The District Court did not consider the lost sight to preclude Reichelt’s particularized suspicion, however, and instead noted that Reichelt’s concern “about the behavior when he saw the car swerve and travel in the middle of the road[,]” along with his observation that the occupants switched positions provided enough data from whiсh Reichelt could make certain inferences. We conclude that, under the totality of circumstances, Reichelt had enough facts at his disposal to satisfy the first prong of the particularized suspicion test.
See e.g. State v. Fellers,
¶12 We next must determine whether, based on the objective data and using knowledge gained from his 27 years of experience, Reichelt could have formed a resulting suspicion that Britt was or had been engaged in some wrоngdoing. Reichelt testified that the switch of drivers led him to believe that “the person who was driving probably should not be driving.” Relying on Reichelt’s experience that people switch places when sоmeone is not supposed to be driving due to some problem, such as a suspended or revoked license or intoxication, the District Court agreed that Reichelt had the factual basis neсessary to justify the stop. We previously have held that to have “a particularized suspicion does not require certainty on the part of the law enforcement
*6
officer.”
State v. Farabee,
¶13 We conclude that the District Court did not err when it denied Britt’s motion to suppress evidence based upon Reichelt’s particularized suspicion to justify an investigative stop. Affirmed.