Posted on 10/15/2015 1:35:52 PM PDT by Borges
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A man was stopped by police after taking a walk in the park with his camera last month. A neighbor spotted David Updike taking photographs and feared that he was taking pictures of children. She took his picture and reported a “creepy guy” to police.
Six police officers cornered Updike on the sidewalk near his home where he was questioned for 20 minutes. Updike was very upset by the anonymous neighbor’s behaviour. He did not do anything wrong. The entire situation could have been avoided if the woman had simply introduced herself.
Updike wrote this open letter about the incident to the Cambridge Chronicle. It it called, “To the woman in Dana Park who called the police on Sept. 23 around 5:30 p.m.”
Dear Neighbor,
Yesterday was a beautiful day, I think you will agree. I decided to take a short walk from my house on Hamilton Street to Dana Park, which I have been coming to almost daily since 1989, the year my son was born. As I often do, I brought my camera, sat on a bench for about 10 minutes, did one lap around the park and headed home.
I had barely gotten across the street when three police cars pulled up: I was told to stop, and swiftly surrounded by six policemen. I was “detained” there for approximately 20 minutes and questioned; another officer returned to the park to find out why you had called them.
My suspected crime, apparently, was having a camera in a public park, and allegedly taking pictures of children. As it turned out, I had taken no pictures that day. But I have been photographing in this neighborhood for 30 years, and have published a children’s book of poems and photographs, always with permission.
The policeman returned and wanted to see my “flip phone,” and then asked me if I knew how he knew I had a flip phone: I didn’t. He knew, he told me, because the woman who called the police had taken a picture of ME, sitting on the bench, and shown him the picture. They then took away my phone, scrolled through the few pictures that were on it.
They continued to hover around me asking questions. As it happened, I was standing near the house where my son now lives, and when my wife appeared, walking down the street after work, and saw me standing in front of his house with six policemen, she instantly feared something terrible had happened to our son. She was shaking, and I explained the situation. She is an English teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School; I am a college professor of English. Our son spent much of the first 15 years of his life in Dana Park.
You must be new in the neighborhood. I am often in the park, on foot or on a bike, talking to friends who have children who play in the playground. I know you were standing very near to me for the entire time I was on the bench, though I could not figure out why. Now I know: you were taking my picture.
Suggestion: the next time you suspect someone is up to no good, perhaps you should say hello, speak to them first and, if still anxious, ask what they are taking pictures of. That’s what people do in a neighborhood park: talk to each other. This would save someone the humiliation and degradation of being stopped and held by the police, and might save the police from wasting their time when they could be doing something more useful, like managing the daily mayhem in Central Square.
The fact that you now have my picture in your phone is both sadly ironic and, well, creepy. Could you please delete it?
Your neighbor,
— David Updike, Hamilton Street
I’ve heard it said that if you’re not paranoid, you don’t know what’s going on—LOL!
Story only works if he`s white.
Well, at least the creepy lady didn’t turn him over to the IRS or Homeland for being a possible Tea Party member.
That’s what we deal with - just ask the peepers at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
There are millions of paranoid people in the world, and they are all out to get me.
This story is proof.
Photography is not a crime.
You do not have a right not to be photographed in public.
Nonetheless, photographers should be careful to introduce themselves and ask permission of potential subject. It’s polite and helps avoid difficulties.
Gladys Kravitz lives!
The man in this story said he had always obtained permission. The Gladys Kravitz neighbor who called the cops on him did not.
I do believe that making audio or video recordings of someone without their permission is not legal.
Great letter - wonderful last line. Good for him! Honestly!
——Photography is not a crime.——
it might be taking pictures of bridges or dams or other infrastructure might be a terrorist action and a real violation
Pretty sure you can record/photograph anyone in a public place.
We’re either supposed to be vigilant or shut the hell up. Followed by the chorus of “why didn’t somebody say something” if it all goes horribly wrong.
I thought the police had to have a reasonable belief that some crime had been committed to detain and question someone.
What could the suspected crime possibly have been? At worst, photographing children in a public park. THIS is a crime?
I would have likely been arrested because I would not have been cooperative with the police. I would have been repeatedly asking if I was being detained, if I was under arrest and make it clear that I don not consent to a search. Cops don’t like it when you “don’t respect their authority.”
“-——wasting their time when they could be doing something more useful, like managing the daily mayhem in Central Square. “
Central Square,Cambridge-——an racially diverse zoo.
Been that way for years.
.
Like the school put on lockdown because “gum” sounds like “gun”. Guess that guy needs to look more Muslim if he wants to take pictures.
“I am a college professor of English.”
I think the neighbor was onto something here.
Sorry, but while "creepy" was her vernacular, and not "SP" for "suspicious person", it's hard to fault her for trying to protect the neighborhood.
Perhaps she watches all the child abduction shows on the ID channel or Mariska Hargitay's show?
Being that it's not only MA, but Cambridge, MA to boot, he must have really freaked her out.
I seem to remember a young boy was kidnapped in Cambridge (1990s) a la Leopold & Loeb (two gay males), and eventually murdered by stuffing a gasoline soaked rag in his mouth.
bfl
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