BrianShaw said:
Good decision, Bill. Complain... why? There's really appears to be nothing substantial to make a complaint against.
I could complain that Cop #1 exceeded his authority by threatening to arrest me if I took his photo after he told me not to. But I don't see what good it would do to complain about this. Our discussion made it clear that I understood he had no legal authority to do this - his partner agreed and told me to shove off. Problem resolved.
Cop#1 seems to have a slightly heavy-handed way of speaking. Had he said "Please don't take my picture, it makes me uncomfortable." then there never would have been this discussion... unless Bill got in his face, or something like that.
His first comment to me was what I would call 'heavy handed' in that he said quite clearly and distinctly that I was not allowed to take his photo without his permission.
I suppose you could say that I got in his face - in the sense that I walked over to the two of them to try to get more information - for example, if there was a law against photography in the park, etc. I asked - and was told that if I persisted in trying to take a photo of Cop #1, he'd arrest me. That goes a bit beyond 'heavy-handed' into 'complete lie' from my point of view.
Cop#1 seems to have an "attitude", but that's fairly typical of New Yorkers. So, what's to complain about -- he's misinformed?, He's rude?, He's a jerk?. None of these are crimes... just like taking his picture isn't a crime.
Threatening to arrest someone for behavior that is not illegal is a crime in many jurisdictions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_color_of_authority
"Under color of authority is a legal phrase indicating a person is claiming or implying the acts he or she is committing are related to and legitimized by his or her role as an agent of governmental power."
The police in our societies are given wide latitude and more power to enforce laws than the average citizen. But they do not have the authority to make up their own laws, and because the average citizen fears arrest and will do as they are told by police in most circumstances, they are held more strictly to account - when they give a citizen an order or what can reasonably be interpreted as an order, it should be legal for them to do so. They should have the actual authority to back their presumed authority.
As a human being, he (the cop) has a right to feel uncomfortable about a stanger taking his picture, and he has a right to ask that the picture not be taken. But honey often works better than vinegar.
I did not end up taking his photo - nor would I have, if he had asked me not to in any case.
From my point of view, it was not his manner of speech - it was the fact that a man wearing a badge of authority gave me an order - which I suspected and later confirmed was not a lawful order. We're not talking honey and vinegar here - we're talking about legal and illegal.
Illegal orders given by police have a chilling effect on civil liberties. This has been upheld by courts again and again in US society.
Have you ever read about some restaurant manager arrested because he ordered his employees to strip naked and be searched - because he thought he was being 'ordered' to do so by a police officer on the phone?
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/a...or_restaurants_authorities_across_the_nation/
The freak on the phone was not a cop - but the manager thought so - that's how much trust and authority we presume the police to have - we do what we are told, for the most part. One cannot then wear a badge and go around giving unlawful orders.
(Oh... let me admit to all right now... I'm NOT a lawyer, in the US or Canada. But I do watch a lot of Judge Judy, People's Court, and Judge Extreme Akim so I think I've learned a thing or two about the law.) 😉
I am not a lawyer. I have had some minor legal training, and I have been a military policeman, worked as a reserve Sheriff's Deputy, and been a civilian police dispatcher for a major metropolitan police department in the Denver area. This does not qualify me to offer legal advice, nor would I do so. But I have an interest in the law and I am capable of research.
What is a crime, from what I understand, is when someone (cop or otherwise) physically harrasses a photographer who is legally taking pictures (I believe that is assault),
An assault is either a physical attack or the reasonable fear of a physical attack. To be an assault, it has to be actually possible - your fear has to be real. I could not 'assault' you over the internet. If I showed up at your door and raised my fist to you in a threatening manner, and you believed you were about to get slugged, I would have assaulted you. If I actually hit you, that's battery.
physically attacks the photographer who is legally taking a picture (I believe that is battery), or takes film/camera from a photographer who is legally taking a picture (I believe that is robbery or conversion). I think George is talking through his underwear when he said that it's easy(er) in the digital era because "you" (the cop) can just make the photographer delete the picture. I'll bet that is not a legal action if the photographer is legally taking pictures.
There is a difference between 'can' and 'should'. A cop 'can' make people do lots of things. Whether or not those actions are legal is often determined in a court of law later on.
Now, if a photographer is ILLEGALLY taking pictures, that would result in a legal arrest and confiscation of equipment. A totally different story.
There is a huge debate over just that - what constitutes
illegal photography? What are people not allowed to photograph? I'm not talking about photography and how the resulting photos will be used - that's civil law. I'm talking about the act of taking a photograph at all.
It is generally well-understood that there are such places, settings, and circumstances where photography is illegal. Inside a nuclear reactor, a military base, missile silo, that sort of thing.
Can taking a photo of a bridge or a tunnel be illegal? Some jurisdictions have such laws on the books. Are those laws constitutional? I don't know. I suppose that they will be tested in time by courts that determine constitutionality - such as the US Supreme Court.
Can there be 'secret' laws that prohibit taking a photo of this or that - such that it is illegal not only to take the photo, but to inform the public that the law exists? This is also in play right now - some have reported that they were threatened with arrest for violating unpublished or 'secret' laws that cannot be found written down anywhere. Do free societies allow secret laws that you don't know you've violated until you violate them? I believe in time all these questions will have to be addressed.
To conclude and sum up. No, I did not file a complaint, and will not do so over this. I believe that the officer (#1) did not just act with lack of politeness, but rather in an unlawful manner - but the violation did not result in any damage to me, I have suffered no loss, no deprivation, and no imprisonment or confiscation of my property. I was threatened with arrest, and I responded to this threat by informing the officer that I did not believe he had that authority - at which point his partner stepped in and ended the confrontation.
The officers in question were only known to be to be law enforcement officers at the time I spoke with them. I noted that they wore "Smokey the Bear" hats and dark brown uniforms, not the normal dark blue of the NYPD, but they also wore badges and guns - to me, that's police authority. The first officer threatened me with arrest - suggesting that they had the authority to effect an arrest. If in fact Park Rangers do not have such authority, it was unknown to me at the time. Neither were they 'kids' - both were as old or older than I am - and I am 45 this year. Nor did I confront them in any way prior to being ordered not to take Officer #1's photograph without asking his permission first. Had they not done so, I'd have taken my photo and left. I took plenty of photos of NYPD officers during my visit - in some cases, they turned away from me, ruining the shot - I did not run after them and demand that they pose for me. Had Officer #1 simply said "Would you mind not taking my photo?" I'd have complied, and again that would have been the end of it. I would have complied NOT because he asked, but simply because I would no longer have the shot I wanted - having been noticed while taking the photo was not an effect I was after.
Best Regards,
Bill Mattocks
