Question for all the *cops* on the forum...

[thebdt]

Okay, I'm still a little bit in disbelief over what happened, so please forgive me if I ramble or talk a bit disjointedly.

Everyone's heard of driving while black, right? Well, apparently, walking while photographing now also provokes "reasonable suspicion."

I was walking downtown to do some "Theater of Everyday Life" photography. I had been going at it for at least 20 minutes, discretely taking pictures, sometimes of people, after spending the early afternoon in the downtown library soaking up Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank (I was especially inspired to do candid shots ala "The Americans").

So these three people, all adults, two women in the front and a man in the back, in their mid-20s at least, were stopped in their car at a light. They had interesting expressions, and so I snapped their picture. They didn't say a WORD to me, ask me to stop, ask what I was doing, or anything. I go along about my merry business when two policemen walk up behind me and stop me, demanding to see my identification.

I was a little confused, and brought up the fact that people in a public place have no legal expectation to privacy. Cop #1 informed me that if someone asks me to stop, I have to stop taking their picture. Okay, fine, I don't want to be a flaming jerk anyway. But as I said, and as I explained to the cops, NO ONE in the car said ANYTHING to me.

So we chat a bit more while we're waiting for them to check my driver's license (I took the bus downtown and was a *pedestrian*). I keep trying to get Cop #1 to explain to me how he has reasonable suspicion to detain me, when it's obvious that the people in the car are just over-sensitive and it's a legal fact that I had done nothing wrong. Cop #2 interrupts me with "let's cut the bull****, perverts are walking around taking pictures of young girls, and we need to make sure you're not one of them." Keep in mind the people I took a picture of were in their mid-20s, not their mid-2s. I "checked out okay" and they finally let me go.

So my question to the cops on the forum is: was this OK? Is it now SDPD policy to stop all wandering photographers, photographers in broad daylight in the middle of downtown clearly on public property, to stop, harass, and suspect us of being sexual perverts? Is taking a picture of someone in their car an overtly sexual act? Grounds for reasonable suspicion? Or should I just have gotten the cops' business cards and filed a complaint?

If I had been taking pictures of children, I could at least appreciate and sympathize with their concern. As it seems to me, certain cops just like to have an excuse -- any excuse -- to harass people, non-criminals, who are doing something slightly unique or outside of the norm.