Long Beach Police Chief Confirms Detaining Photographers | Hacker News Reader

Long Beach Police Chief Confirms Detaining Photographers

lbpost.com

41 pointsscottshea21 comments

"Papers, please."

"I'm sorry, you haven't been granted permission to be in this neighborhood. Come with me."

I really don't understand how police officers can be comfortable with these actions. Unfortunately, I've talked with enough "normal" people who think the police are justified in this that I believe it is going to get far worse before it gets better.

>McDonnell says that while there is no police training specific to determining whether a photographer's subject has "apparent esthetic value," officers make such judgments "based on their overall training and experience" and will generally approach photographers not engaging in "regular tourist behavior."

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. -- Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart

This is hilarious because

A) I've been planning a 1400-mile road trip to Long Beach for weeks, and I leave tomorrow.

B) I'm an avid street photographer.

C) I have a bad habit of pushing authority figures' buttons, because of my disrespect for them generally, because of things like this.

I doubt it will, but if anything interesting happens I'll be sure to write about it and share on HN. Geuis makes a good point, but my main thing literally is photographing strangers when they're not expecting it. (not to be a whore, but if you're interested: http://nnife.com/images/pinhole/spring/2.jpg http://nnife.com/images/film/1/7.jpg http://nnife.com/images/film/1/29.jpg)

As this will be my first time in Long Beach and I have 8 rolls of B&W film sitting around I plan to be very prolific this upcoming week.

"Among the non-criminal behaviors "which shall be reported on a SAR" are ... asking about an establishment's hours of operation ... and taking notes."

So if I see an interesting business which is closed, ask someone if they know when it's open, and note that down so that I can return to it when it is, I would be reported as a suspicious person.

What the policy actually describes as suspicious behavior is:

"Engages security personnel in questions focusing on sensitive subjects (security information, hours of operation, shift changes, what security cameras film, etc.)."

"Draws diagrams or takes notes (building plans, location of security cameras or security personnel, security shift changes, notes of weak security points, etc.)."

What you said, by contrast, is bullshit.

Your last comment is not necessary or helpful and detracts from the discussion in my opinion.

Thanks for giving context to the grandparent post, but when compared to the actual wording of the policy it is certainly not "bullshit" and within the realms of reasonable interpretation. When you take into account how police officers practically interpret these policies I wouldn't be at all surprised if this behaviour was "caught" by the policy.

Disagree. I found the original comment to be far more toxic; while written in a level tone, it materially misrepresents the story, thus sidetracking us into a discussion of something that didn't happen.

Thank you for clarifying; however, as I was quoting directly from the linked article, in paragraph six (the ellipses I added did not change the meaning of the sentence noticeably), not from the actual policy, I think that you might be better served to call the article out as not accurately representing the policy rather than to call people out for taking the article at face value.

The article you're quoting links directly to the LAPD SAR, where the surrounding context (literally in the same sentence) to your "hours of operation" quote makes it obvious that your "found an interesting business" proposition isn't implicated.

The article quoted the SAR out of context, and not only did you perpetuate that bad quote, but you actually amplified it by making up a narrative to go with it.

The original text of the article is no defense for intellectual laziness or dishonesty.

So the bit that gets left out to the very end is that he wasn't physically detained.

The photographer is shooting at a refinery. A cop shows up and asks what the guy is doing. Guy says he's an artist. By the guys own admission, the cop was perfectly friendly and polite. Cop asks to see his id, and gives some spiel about how Homeland Security lets them require you to show your ID. Cop runs his license and hands it back and says he can keep on shooting. Cop leaves.

There are two things going on here. First, nationally in some areas there's this push by law enforcement against being photographed, and they try to extend that to public places too. That's very bad and needs to be combatted.

The second thing is the flavor of this article is trying to portray this event in the light of the first situation, and it just plain isn't. If anyone is taking pictures of a major installation and it's not something that normally happens, it's prudent to just nicely ask what the person is doing and move on, which is what happened here.

The photographer wasn't physically detained or arrested. The cop didn't want to look at the photos or try to make him delete them. Just because you feel like you are being detained doesn't mean you are.

I am a photographer too. I got all bristly when I first started reading this, only to reach the end and see that nothing happened. I've gotten face to face with people who think they can can control what people take pictures of.

This, however, is not one of those situations.

The concern is that the law is so broad that it could be abused. In this case the officer let him go about his business but what will happen in the next case? This rule is so subjective that it can justifiably be used at times other than in the spirit in which it was designed for.

What law? The article refers to a "special order" of the LAPD which directs the officers to question photographers, but doesn't mention any laws as far as I can see.

What specific law are you referring to? A police department's general orders are not laws. They're directives to the police, and they're confined to those powers already lawfully conferred to the police. A department's general orders cannot meaningfully include things like "arrest photographers on sight".

I'm must say. It's a terrible article, it leads you on like a drunk college girl, just to be left in the dumps a page later.

Where is the "this is what happened" part? Why make the reader think that the photographer was thrown in jail? Why not just come right out and say:

Photographer questioned on-site regarding the photographing of a refinery. Photographer feels molested, but is actually quite fine. Laws about questioning photographers about photographing uncommon places are too broad and rely on the officers own interpretation of esthetic. Something should be done.

Tada.

An inconsistently in this report that bothers me is that it cites an LAPD policy; but the article is about LBPD. Why would an LAPD special order apply to police in an adjacent city in the same county?

ridiculous policy.

Nice photograph in the article, by the detained photographer. Thus it apparently it has "esthetic value", so the officer erred in detaining the photographer.

Except he wasn't detained.

from the article:

"...was detained by Officer Asif Kahn for taking pictures..."

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2884313

He was detained only in the very casual sense of being stopped to ask a question ("Sorry I'm late; I was detained outside"). He was not brought into custody, which is the usual sense in which people are said to be detained by the police.

yes, but this semantic axe grinding misses point of the initial comment:

LBPD policy: "if x: then y;"

Report: "not x; then y!"

Your algorithm has an error that renders it unexecutable on existing hardware. Here's a corrected version, which appears to be the one the police are using based on their statements:

LBPD policy: "if apparently x: then y"

Report: "apparently (but not actually) x; y"

If have the ability to upgrade police officers with psychic powers, I'm sure they'll be happy to switch to your fork.

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