and Gant walked toward the officer. The officer placed Gant under arrest about eight to ten feet from Gant's car. Gant was handcuffed and locked into the back of a nearby patrol car.
¶ 5 Within one to three minutes of the arrest, two officers searched Gant's car. Therein, the police found contraband and a weapon. At the time of the search, the other arrestees had also been secured: both had been placed into handcuffs and locked into the back of patrol cars. The residence's owner was not present at this time and, although officers "were anticipating [her] arrival," nothing in the record suggests she returned to the home that night.
¶ 6 Based on the officers' uncontradicted testimony, the trial court found that Gant's vehicle had been "searched almostcarefully culls from Dean simply cannot be separated from the unique facts with which the court was faced, particularly when relied on to avoid the Belton rule on the very type of situation and facts that rule was designed to address.
¶ 24 The majority goes on to sidestep Dean's true holding by attempting to distinguish the facts at hand from Belton's rationale. But it cannot reasonably be maintained that the search of Gant's vehicle a mere "one to three minutes" after Gant had been secured can be considered anything but contemporaneous and proximate to his occupancy of the vehicle and arrest. Gant's car was searched within scant minutes after he exited it, and he was at the scene while the search was conducted. As noted above, the Dean