Court Opinion

ID: 9762352
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:20:50.581065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:33.666614
License: Public Domain

WATKINS, Judge,
dissenting:
I respéctfully dissent.
In the instant case the officer stopped the defendant while he was operating a stolen bicycle. Upon doing so the officer observed that the serial number of the bicycle had been forcibly removed from the frame of the bicycle. Prior to stopping the defendant, the officer had been investigating bicycle thefts in the area and had been informed that the defendant had been involved with stolen bicycles. While the information which the officer had when he stopped the defendant to talk to him may not have been enough to arrest him it certainly justified the intermediate step of stopping the defendant rather than ignoring him. See Commonwealth v. LeSeuer, 252 Pa. Superior Ct. 498, 382 A.2d 127 (1977) [Allocatur denied—May 3,1978]. The Fourth Amendment to our Constitution does not require a police officer “who lacks the precise level of information necessary for probable cause to arrest to simply shrug his shoulders and allow a crime to occur or a criminal to escape”. Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1977).
I would affirm the defendant’s adjudication as based upon properly seized and sufficient evidence.