TX: It is not required that a specific offense be identified for reasonable suspicion

It is not required that a specific offense be identified for reasonable suspicion to exist. Derichsweiler v. State, 348 S.W.3d 906 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011), cert. denied 2011 U.S. LEXIS 6188 (U.S. Oct. 3, 2011) (concurrence; dissent), revg Derichsweiler v. State, 301 S.W.3d 803 (Tex. App. – Fort Worth, 2009):

… We conclude that the majority below erred to the extent that its opinion may be read for the proposition that facts adduced to give rise to a reasonable suspicion must show that the detainee has committed, is committing, or is about to commit, a particular and distinctively identifiable penal offense.

Unlike the case with probable cause to justify an arrest, it is not a sine qua non of reasonable suspicion that a detaining officer be able to pinpoint a particular penal infraction. The reason is simple but fundamental. A brief investigative detention constitutes a significantly lesser intrusion upon the privacy and integrity of the person than a full-blown custodial arrest. For this reason, a warrantless investigative detention may be deemed “reasonable” for Fourth Amendment purposes on the basis of a lesser quantum or quality of information—reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause. Likewise, because a detention is less intrusive than an arrest, the specificity with which the articulable information known to the police must demonstrate that a particular penal offense has occurred, is occurring, or soon will occur, is concomitantly less. It is, after all, only an “investigative” detention. So long as the intrusion does not exceed the legitimate scope of such a detention and evolve into the greater intrusiveness inherent in an arrest-sans-probable-cause, the Fourth Amendment will tolerate a certain degree of police proaction. Particularly with respect to information suggesting that a crime is about to occur, the requirement that there be “some indication that the unusual activity is related to crime” does not necessarily mean that the information must lead inexorably to the conclusion that a particular and identifiable penal code offense is imminent. It is enough to satisfy the lesser standard of reasonable suspicion that the information is sufficiently detailed and reliable—i.e., it supports more than an inarticulate hunch or intuition—to suggest that something of an apparently criminal nature is brewing.

[It isn’t for PC, so why not for RS?]