Well, one of the reasons people wind up living in a police state is that
they call the police about everything and nothing. Soon the police are
so used to inquiring about everybody's business they think they that is
their job. I still think this is a result of so many people having moved
here from countries where that is the norm (not you personally,
Eleanor), so that they do it without thinking. Of course I would guess
that most folks from repressive areas might still be leery of calling
the cops for any reason including violence to their person. However,
when I was growing up no one called the cops unless there was something
involving violence or theft.
But being honest, these days I have learned to call the cops about noisy
neighbors, usually drunken college students at 1am. On the other hand I
submit that I try to talk to them first. And only when they make it
clear that they feel their right to make noise is more important to them
than my right to peace and quite do I call in the blue-suits My thinking
is that is a better thing to do than rearranging the shape of their
head, or removing it and placing it where it belongs.
I really and firmly believe that short of actually seriously annoying
people, folks ought to have the right to do their own thing without
being harassed by the cops. And do I consider what happened to Shell to
be harassment pure and simple. What ever happened to presumed innocence?
How does taking photos of fully clothed kids in public places become a
crime except in the minds of the seriously deranged?
And the fact is the police do not investigate every complaint that is
called in, they would need 10 times as many officers than they now have.
Officer there is a man walking down the street in the dark. Officer
there is a car driving slowly by checking out house numbers. Officer
there is a man hanging around in front of the convenience store. And it
is always a man, no one calls in as says there is a woman doing these
things, although women are as likely as a man to go for a walk, or drive
by trying to find a particular address, or wait for someone in front of
the convenience store. These days it seems like people are considered
guilty of what they might do, rather than what they are doing or have
done. Check out that old guy taking pictures, and resting on fire
hydrants, he must be a pervert. And it happened in a suburb of San
Francisco for crying out loud, that is the scariest part of Shel's story.
graywolf
http://www.graywolfphoto.com
"Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof"
-----------------------------------
E.R.N. Reed wrote:
Shel Belinkoff wrote:
... I had no intention of turning it into a
pissing match with a cop who was only doing the job his community wanted
him to do. He was polite - almost to the point of being apologetic -
and a
gentleman, and we shook hands when the encounter was over.
See, here's a point I think was mostly missed in an earlier thread (I
pointed it out but I don't know if anybody picked up on it) -- It's
not necessarily a case of "police want to harass" as that some people
get suspicious and call them, and then they have to make inquiries --
knowing that most of the time it's going to be "nothing" but once in
some large number of times, it might be "something." (Like, how many
people ever pulled over for a missing licence plate had just bombed a
Federal building?)
Personally I don't understand the mindset behind calling the cops on a
person with a camera in the vicinity of a high school (I don't even
get excited about "person with a camera in the vicinity of a
playground" -- I generally assume the latter are parents, grandparents
or otherwise connected to the children, after all that's why *I*'m
there with my camera) but apparently that particular paranoid mindset
exists. The police are probably about as tired of it as the
photographers with whom they have these casual little chats.
(If "strange person with camera near a playground" strikes up
conversation with my child at a distance from me, I'd start taking a
close interest, but otherwise, no.)
I take it this story means you're on the mend physically, Shel? Good
to hear, if so.
ERNR
