That I empathize with you feeling in danger. This is something you should not ever have to put up with.

This puts more of an impetus on you, sir, to police your “own”. This means, whatever you can do to insure that your brothers and sisters in arms are performing by the book…at least while YOU are around. Take control of what you CAN. Your story demonstrates an extreme of sorts, but a lot of your stress comes from an accumulation of unspoken animosity and fear hurled your way from the general public a good deal of the time. Thoughts do carry energy.

Sorry to tell you, this is probably more often than not because someone has had a bad experience with another cop. Subconsciously, they might be seeing you as one to be feared more than anything. There may be more of your “mates” who are responsible for this kind of thing than you realize.

Kind of reminds me of my military days as an officer…where we were taught how it was looked down upon to “screw everyone else over” by one’s own, selfish actions. Too often cops turn the other way while their colleagues pull some pretty dreadful stuff.

I’m sure you do a great job….

…but it’s not Carlos who made your choice to be a cop, nor is it him who is causing nor “helping” your plight. Its people like the two Ohio police chiefs recently charged stealing items to sell to celebrity photographers. Its cops who follow professors into their own homes without permission, only to generalize “two black men with backpacks” on a police report when nothing like that was ever called in. It’s being woken up many times at 2 and 3 in the morning with a helicopter circling over my block, very LOW and very LOUDLY for an hour. It’s people who chose to taser and kill a man in a Vancouver airport as opposed to calming him down and handling it responsibly.

With all due respect, (my dad was a cop…I have no protest towards a uniform) you might want to spread to your associates, the idea of doing a better job, of policing yourselves.

In fact, that seems to be the case with any paperwork – filing or trying to obtain.

According to an article that appeared a last year in the Galveston Daily News:

Cpl. Tom Robison of the Texas City Police Department, who is also the city’s contact with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, said the police department’s policy is to detain anyone photographing the city’s chemical plants. Police then review photos to see if they pose any threat but do not confiscate cameras or photographs.

Forcing a photographer to show his pictures to police is a violation of the fourth amendment of the constitution of the United States – but we all know that Texas does not consider itself subject to our constitution.

My local paper, The Corpus Christi Caller-Times, ran an article in Sunday’s paper about a new law which authorizes police to use force in order to get people to comply with evacuation orders during hurricanes. A disturbing number of commenters had no problem at all with this; an order’s an order, so if you don’t follow it, the police have every right to issue a beatdown.

Here’s a link that tries to make sense of this whole War on Photography.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/06/the_war_on_phot.html

Although no signs are posted ANYWHERE prohibiting photography, if you are caught taking photos of the wall, the courtyard, or God forbid the Hollywood Hills from the upper level, a security guard comes around and threatens to confiscate your camera. Could someone please write to me at the address above or comment here as to HOW on earth that is legal? My friend was threatened with arrest for photographing succulents! National security concerns is it? What’s the deal Carlos? Its hard enough to find a peaceful place to relax and hang out here, and when you do…you have to worry about being arrested!!! WTF?