“’Sir, I’m going to ask you one last time, then I’m going to take you into custody. Do we understand each other?’” the officer said.
Is there a third disposition between ‘in custody’ and ‘free to go’?
IIRC at this point one officer, in between lecturing him, was asking for Fussell for identification. Chris responded by giving and spelling his name. The officer was on the phone, maybe with higher ups, who eventually let him go without Chris showing ID but followed him to Penn Station. At that point, he showed ID to the Amtrak policeman who ran a warrant check on him. He knew he would have to produce ID to purchase an Amtrak ticket so showed it to the Amtrak officer.
Chris is a well known and respected transit photographer out of Portland so he is well aware of his rights as a photographer. Others have run afoul of this type of uninformed officer including the editor of a nationally known railroad publication who was detained after photographing historic NYC subway cars on a public platform.
It’s not rocket science, you have a right to photograph for non-commercial personal use trains, buses, trucks, planes, etc. from any publicly accessible location. You also do not have to produce ID if you are not trespassing or otherwise breaking the law. You do not have to give up your camera or video recorder to the police absent a search warrant.