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Originally Posted by NRA guy
Interesting that several have mentioned stopping a person because of "a reasonable belief that a crime is about to happen."
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Not a suspicion that a crime "is about to happen." A suspicion that a crime is happening.
In fact, the SCOTUS decision in
Terry v. Ohio does allow for a police officer
based on the totality of the circumstances to form a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed, is being committed, or is about to be committed. So the SCOTUS left the door open to that, but the
Terry decision made it clear that the "reasonable" suspicion must be supported by specific, clearly articulable facts.
In the case that is the subject of this discussion, I didn't get that the officer was claiming he suspected the biker was going to commit an armed robbery, a murder, an assault or any other future crime. The officer saw a Hell's Angel from PA riding in Pagans territory in DE and arrived at the conclusions that (a) the guy probably wouldn't enter another gang's turf unarmed, AND (b) since he's not from DE he probably doesn't have a DE carry permit, therefore if he has a gun he IS COMMITTING a crime.
No future thought involved, just simple deductive logic operating entirely in the present tense.