Police State?

My first couple of websites, extremely basic affairs which I wrote back
in about 1996 or '97, using SimpleText or PageSpinner, carried the moniker
of PhotoTerrorism.

This was, of course, before 9/11 and the threat of real terrorism in
this country and at the time was just a kind of tongue-in-cheek
identity that I thought described a small part of what was my
photographic 'style.

There was nothing I liked better than to, with a reporter, go knocking
on the door of some politico being charged with corruption or
solicitation and banging off a few frames of the palms of their hands
as they slammed the door in our faces or to push a wide angle lens up
in the face of the handcuffed perp as he/she was led from the police
car to the courthouse.

I kept the name PhotoTerrorism for a long time until I decided to
register the domain. Much to my dismay, somebody had beaten me to it
and worse, there was nothing of any real value there.

Disappointed, I just abandoned the whole idea of associating myself
with that name and by then, I was out of the photo stalker business
anyway.

But recently, I temporarily but gently revisited the style and I
probably don't even know how close I came to being arrested for it.

It was the 18th birthday celebration of my niece Chelsea and 15 of us,
geezers and teens, gathered at Buca di Beppo at Universal City Walk.

A lovely time was had by all and a fair amount of chianti was consumed by most, including myself.

Well, OK, I had too much chianti and occasionally when I have too much
of a given alcoholic beverage, I start having too much fun, sometimes
at the expense of those unlucky enough to be accompanying me. My wife Linda
will attest to this as she was the one who dealt with the bulk of my
self-centeredness that night.

Having said that, I must state that I was nowhere near belligerent or
obnoxious. I was not stumbling around annoying people, except maybe
Linda.

After dinner we all strolled through City Walk and at one point most of
us stopped near a store where some members of the party decided to buy
socks.

So I sat down and began taking photographs of the crowds walking past.
I was simply slowing the shutter down to expose for the abundance of
neon and florescent and popping a little flash as people went by. Not a
single person gave even a sideways glance as I did this for
approximately 15 minutes. I took about 10-15 images this way then moved
over to where Linda and her sister Susan were sitting and started
photographing them.

Just then a security guard in a white, pleated shirt, mounty hat and
utility belt approached and started interrogating me as to why I was
taking photos.

"I'm taking photos because I like to take photos, why would you ask?" I
replied, trying to tamp down the outrage that was immediately boiling
up, but still let just the right amount of it out so as to sound
confident and knowledgeable about what my rights were but not provoke
this want-to-be law enforcement person.

"Are these folks members of your family sir?"

"Why yes they are, why would you ask?" I said with a touch more acrimony.

"Excuse me miss but is this person taking pictures related to you?" he asks Linda and Susan.

"Yes he is!" they both replied, voices charged with their own indignation.

It was about this time that I noticed that this "officer" was not alone.

"What is the problem and why do you think it necessary to come over
here and hassle me about taking pictures with no less than one, two,
three, four, five, six SEVEN security guards?!"

I pointed to each one as I counted them speaking loud enough for passersby to hear.

I was already seeing myself being carted off with two guards holding
each one of my limbs while I screamed like Lee Harvey Oswald, "I'm not resisting arrest, I'M
NOT RESISTING ARREST!"

"We did not know the nature of the call sir," the little man with the utility belt replied.

"Oh please! I can not imagine how that radio transmission must have sounded!"

I was getting pissed and I was about to mock their lack of having
anything more meaningful to do with their lives when it kind of hit me.

Having worked as a press photographer for 18 years I know what my, and
anybody else's, rights are in this situation. I'm basically on private
property and these folks, overzealous as they may
be, are acting as the agent of the property owner.

They can tell me that I can not take photos here if they wish, as
absurd as that is being that this is a tourist attraction and there are
hundreds of other people snapping away with the Canon ELFs and
Kodak Easyshares.

Photography at CityWalk is OK unless you do it in such as way as it
looks like you're a professional and you have not acquired the
requisite clearances from the PR department previously.

I decided that I really didn't want to spend the night in jail and then
have to deal with the repercussions and expense of it all later so I
looked for a way to diffuse the situation and just walk away. Just then
the magnificent 7 were joined by an armed L.A. Sheriff Deputy.
The cavalry had arrived.
We walked away.

I learned later that as we did, these dilweeds were actually
high-fiving each other and chanting things like, "Yeah, you better walk
away!" like a bunch of street thugs having just forced a weaker foe to
back down from an alley fight. This of course only confirms the level
of "professional" security personnel employed by
Universal.

It may very well be that the over-confidence won by the job-well-done
of ridding City Walk of another photo nuisance, thereby rendering the
place safe for consuming again, combined with the muddled ineptitude of
the gang, that led to arrest later of another infidel.

Susan came into the micro brewery where we were later to tell us that
the same crew had just taken an insurgent to the ground who continually
screamed, "What did I do? Help me! What did I do?"

I could go on and on about how I think CityWalk is actually an
oppressive police state run by former members of the Stasi and that I
will never set foot there again but that would be boring and maybe even inflammatory.

The following day I think I may have discovered the reason that all of
this got started. Looking at the images I had taken during that fateful
15 minutes I found the photo displayed above.

This vision of pseudo authority was right in the middle of
the hopeless team with no future wearing the harshest scowl I have ever
seen on a human being.

I believe it was her who, after having a small amount of strobe light
exposed on her lovely countenance, went running for reinforcements to
harass and hopefully arrest the phototerrorist.