Student lands in legal trouble for photographing police cars

[ateamer]

Taking pictures of police cars is somehow a threat to national security? Riiiight. Oh, that's right, it's because terrorists might duplicate the paint scheme and markings and impersonate officers. Uh-huh. Sounds like someone had too much (or too little) coffee down at the station. Haven't they figured out that these super-secret marked police cars get driven around town and everyone knows what they look like? Are newspaper reporters going to be banned from taking pictures of patrol cars at crime scenes? Are they going to demand that PD's everywhere remove pictures of their cars from official Websites? Monty McCord must be shaking in his boots (he's the guy who wrote several photo books of police cars across the country). What a crock.

[Watchman]

It's rubbish. Yes, it is.

WOW !!!

Thats TWICE that Blondie has agreed with me in the last week !

Whodathoughit?

[FLLawdog]

C'mon, people, let's ok at what he was hooked for....TRESPASSING, not taking photos. Believe it or not, government facilities do have restricted areas, and he was in one.

There are plenty of opportunities to photograph cars during the course of a day. Hell, I'm sure most agencies, if you ask prior, will let you snap some. There's no big secret to a p-car. It's grannymobile with cool lights, but there are guys out there who love taking pictures of them. Hell, everyone needs a hobby. I like reading about the space program, but I'm not f'ing stupid enough to slip into a secure area of KSC and start snapping pictures. He screwed up.

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I guess what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander...

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See the thread on cops taking pics of "Future" suspects.

To me, it seems that turnabout is fair pay.

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Once again, comparing apples to oranges. The only similarity is that a camera was involved.

[Sig220Man]

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Originally posted by FLLawdog:
C'mon, people, let's ok at what he was hooked for....TRESPASSING, not taking photos. Believe it or not, government facilities do have restricted areas, and he was in one.

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I agree LawDog. I've been trying to explain this myself, but apparently that's all been lost in the "I have the RIGHT to take pictures of a police car" hoopla or the "The only reason he was arrested is because he's a Muslim" hoopla or "It's publicly-owned property, therefore I have a RIGHT to be there" hoopla.

It appears the only people that can see through all of this, and find the real meat of the arrest, are you, me and....Frank Booth

If I find someone in my station's rear parking lot, and he/she refuses to leave, or he/she comes back another day, he/she goes to jail, simple as that. I don't care what his/her intent is. Prior to 9/11, few if any people thought that a bunch of well-off Saudi's taking flight school lessons would do what they ended up doing.

Everybody's hyper-sensitive over 9/11, but threats to police installations have been around long before that.

Not long ago, the Los Angeles area was treated to the sensational trial (as if we don't have enough already) of a 60's radical (turned Minnesota housewife and mother) who tried to murder LAPD officers by planting a pipe bomb under their patrol car. It's only by the grace of God that two more names aren't on the memorial wall. This same pillar of society is now facing the death penalty for her role in a bank robbery-turned murder in Sacramento County 25+ years ago.

While the pipe bomb was placed while the patrol car was parked at an I-HoP on Sunset Blvd, it could have easily taken place in our back parking lot. That's why I'm unhappy about our lot being unfenced (that's changing soon), and that's why I'm vigilant about non-employees being back there. Again all long before 9/11.

[ateamer]

I have no problem with hooking him for trespass, since he was in a restricted area. The problem is with this silly theory that terrorists are photographing police cars to duplicate them for their attacks. If they wanted to impersonate cops, they'd do like other nutjobs have done. Buy a light bar, vehicle decals and slap them on a surplus patrol car bought at auction. Am I going to be labeled a terrorist since I look at a lot of police car photos online? Is my department contributing to the problem by having a photo of our patrol cars online, allowing easy access for anyone to copy the markings? Alriiiight, I got a big case to work on this week...

[Niteshift]

I'm not missing the "meat" of the arrest. I'm simply looking at it based on my experiences. No dept. I've worked for has had a "restricted area" for the parking of patrol cars, or POV's for that matter.

I've worked out of sub-stations located in strip malls, public parks, on the corner of main intersections etc. None had a "restricted area". I've seen some that had fenced in areas and, in those cases, I'd agree, trespassing was apporopriate. But I apparently missed the part in the article that said this was a fenced in area.

[jessiejordan]

oh my God ? you mean its people out there that are actually SO into taking pics of police cruisers as a hobby ????? Damn ! thats a fetish I hadnt heard of....
now I could see myself wanting to snap pics of the cute officers driving them, though

[Sig220Man]

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Originally posted by ateamer:
I have no problem with hooking him for trespass, since he was in a restricted area. The problem is with this silly theory that terrorists are photographing police cars to duplicate them for their attacks

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I agree that the stated theory behind this arrest is going to cause more problems than anything.

What that department should have told the press is that this person was caught photographing vehicles in the station's rear parking lot, an area not open to the public, was ordered to leave and to not return, and when he did return he was placed under arrest for trespassing, a violation of Penal Code 602 (or whatever law is in effect for that area).

By mentioning 9/11 and terrorist conspiracy theories, the department has simply opened up itself to criticism that it is unfairly profiling Muslims. That's going to cause problems if he were to decide to fight it in court rather than take the plea bargain, because now his attorney can play the race card in front of a jury.

Sometimes, saying too much (especially to the press) causes more problems than saying nothing at all.

[ 09-05-2002, 01:52 AM: Message edited by: Sig220Man ]

[Sig220Man]

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Originally posted by jessiejordan:
oh my God ? you mean its people out there that are actually SO into taking pics of police cruisers as a hobby ????? Damn ! thats a fetish I hadnt heard of....now I could see myself wanting to snap pics of the cute officers driving them, though

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Jessie, there are lots of police-car buffs out there. Some are cops or ex-cops, some just like looking at police cars. Just go to Yahoo and type "Police cars" in the search field; you'll get a list of MANY websites devoted to this field.

I'm sure you'll find websites devoted to the officers themselves, but as this is a family-oriented forum I'll let you find these yourself

[Darkwulfe]

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Originally posted by SpecOpsWarrior:
"What about this FBI warning? I havent heard of it. Its not posted at the sheriffs dept. We dont have one at work ? Wheres it at?"

I can vouch for that warning, it's true.

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I also saw it; there have been numerous similar FBI warnings in the last year.

[jessiejordan]

>> I'm sure you'll find websites devoted to the officers themselves...........<<

oh thank you Mr Sig220, but I think I'll stay away from those !! *ahem* you never know if your talking to the real MacCoy, and isnt that what got me posting in the first place ! now, when I read my original query I have to just shake me head laugh at myself for being so very gullible and I'll wager some others were laughing too.........

[FLLawdog]

You wouldn't believe the number of copcar "geeks" out there! There's one site I haven't been to in a while, www.copcar.com . Most of them are submitted by civilians, but others are active and retired LE. They're also big into the restoration and preservation of historic police cars.

No, back to the pictures...

Fine, there's a cop car in the picture and this may, in fact, be harmless. There's no big secret to the cars, including the markings and lights. However, if someone really wanted to do harm to a station or precinct or substation, they could take pictures of vulnerable areas like HVAC systems, door and window placements, fences and so on but have the patrol car in the forefront to make it look innocent enough.

Now, for the most part, the substations aren't surrounded by restricted areas and there's no harm in someone taking pictures of them. However, in my agency's case, we have a secure surrounding our ops building and special services area because we house U/C cars, bomb trucks, etc. out there. Once again, no big threat, but not exactly the stuff we want people poking around.

My first fear of a threat isn't exactly terrorists as we've come to define them, but the jackass who wants to exact a little revenge on the PD because they arrested him for doing nothing.

[Dinosaur]

I was curious to see if anyone had ever posted a picture of my car. Using the car number, I did a quick search and...... here it is. A sergeant's car is also in the picture.

It's a photo of the actual vehicle and it wasn't taken at the station (or at the donut or coffee shop).

I'd guess it was taken about 2-3 years ago. It doesn't bother me but I was surprised that I could find the photo so quickly.

For some reason the direct link doesn't work for me. Here's the URL:

http://www.geocities.com/phlpdcars/phl123.jpg

Just take away the asterisks and copy and paste.

*NOTE: This post was edited to fix the link only.*

[ 09-05-2002, 12:13 PM: Message edited by: SpecOpsWarrior ]

[555]

How do departments decide what their cars should look like? I’ve always favored the dark blue and white cars; it’s the patrol car prototype.

[Somewhere in the middle]

Well, when i was in Saudi Arabia We recieved a message about terrorists possibly striking us with faked emergency vehicles so they could get onto the base then blow something or someone up. About 3 days later I nearly killed an ambulance driver who was running with his emergency lights on. He had forgotten to radio ahead and authenticate. About a week later the embassy bombings in africa happened. They used emergency vehicles to get up close and drive right past the guards and do their buisness. I know that we don't have the same situation but I think it is possible. Also I think the trespassing charge is valid.