this just in from the Razor Apple blog:
- Valentine’s Day saw the return of Sky Watch, the NYPD’s friendly neighborhood guard tower, to Nostrand Ave and St. Marks Ave in Crown Heights. Stopping to take a commemorative photo, we were interrupted by four undercover cops stationed nearby, who wasted no time with niceties. “What are you, a terrorist? You look like you’re taking photographs of the officers in that secure area so you can follow them home to hurt them or kill them! Cops get death threats, you know!” Remember when last year East Harlem Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito said, “We need to build community relations, and these things send the wrong message. There should be interaction on the street, instead of towering over people.” Somehow, this doesn’t seem like the interaction she was talking about. Perhaps the NYPD could try approaching more people as humans, not as would-be terrorists and cop killers.
let's hope that this incident is not the start of a trend of increased harassment of photographers.
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1 comments:
Three weeks ago, at Tompkins and Myrtle in Bed-Stuy: I was with some friends, maybe 5 of us total, talking on the sidewalk.
Two cops came up and asked us to "break it up" because "there are so many shots fired every night" that they were breaking up all groups of three or more people.
That's crap for a few reasons, not the least of which being freedom of assembly. In your case, you have every right to photograph something happening in public.
My point is that cops think they can just bully everyone around, and unfortunately, most people don't have the time/know-how/spirit to tell cops they're wrong. Keep it up.
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