THE STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLANT,

v.

ELVIS LOPEZ, APPELLEE

*400SCHWARTZ, Senior Judge.

The State appeals from an order in a prosecution for cocaine trafficking and conspiracy which suppressed self-incriminating statements obtained after a Terry stop the lower court found was unsupported by founded suspicion of the defendant’s involvement in criminal activity. We reverse.

I.

The case stems from an undercover drug arrest. On June 12, 2008, undercover detective Valdez had arranged to purchase two kilograms of powder cocaine from Marcos Lopez. The officer had previously purchased drugs from him on several occasions, in all of which he had been assisted by others. Prior to the sting, Marcos was surveilled by officers who observed him arrive at a residence and then leave with another man, whom they did not know but who turned out to be his cousin, the defendant, Elvis Lopez. Elvis followed Marcos in his own car to a Benni-gan’s parking lot. Marcos met with Valdez on the east side of the lot while the defendant parked on the south side and remained in his vehicle.

After the faux transaction had been completed, a takedown unit moved in and arrested Marcos. Elvis immediately began bacldng up to leave, but Detective Oliva used his car to block and then detain him. After the stop, Elvis volunteered that Marcos owed him money, and that he was there to collect the debt from the proceeds of the sale he knew was going to take place. After the defendant agreed to accompany Oliva to the police station, he was read and waived his Miranda rights and then gave the recorded interview primarily at issue on appeal, in which he specifically admitted his involvement in the unlawful transaction.

At an evidentiary hearing on the defendant’s motion to suppress, which challenged the validity of the initial investigatory stop, Valdez testified that, based on his broad experience, a second vehicle follows a vehicle involved in a drug transaction to insure that there are no law enforcement officials at the transaction site. On the same basis, Oliva stated that the defendant’s behavior gave rise to the suspicion that he was in communication with Lopez during the drug sale. Notwithstanding all of this, the lower court suppressed the admissions, ruling that the stop of which the statements were products was unjustified.

II.

To the contrary, we think it clear that the circumstances apparent before the stop gave rise to a founded or reasonable suspicion, as required by the Constitution, that the defendant was a principal or accomplice in the ongoing drug transaction. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); Baptiste v. State, 995 So.2d 285, 290 (Fla.2008) (“[T]he existence of a reasonable suspicion is based upon specific and articulable facts, and the rational inferences that may be drawn from those facts.”); State v. Arango, 9 So.3d 1251 (Fla. 3d DCA 2009); § 901.151(2), Fla. Stat. (2007) (“Whenever any law enforcement officer of this state encounters any person under circumstances which reasonably indicate that such person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a violation of the criminal laws of this state ... the officer may temporarily detain such person.... ”).

The contrary conclusion, which seems to have been indulged by the trial judge, amounts to a finding not only that the defendant’s actions in accompanying, following, and waiting for Marcos and then attempting to flee when he was apprehended were completely innocent and the connections to the drug deal completely coincidental, but that the police were un*401reasonable as a matter of law in thinking otherwise. To put it mildly, that conclusion is unacceptable. As observed in State v. Maya, 529 So.2d 1282, 1287 n. 7 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988), these determinations do not “turn on whether an innocent explanation can possibly be conjured up from what are obviously incriminating circumstances. Rather, [they are] dependent on what a realistic view of the facts justifies or requires.” Not only can we not fault the police for stopping Elvis, but, as Terry itself says, “[i]t would have been poor police work indeed for [the] officer ... to have failed to investigate[ ][his] behavior.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 23, 88 S.Ct. 1868. See Terry1; U.S. v. Canela, 144 Fed.Appx. 17 (11th Cir.2005)2, and Brown v. State, 719 So.2d 1243 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998)3. Applying these principles, the stop was justified, Terry; § 901.151(2), and the order under review cannot stand.

Reversed and remanded.