By Carlos Miller
It took police in the United Kingdom just three days to go back on their word.
Last Friday, the Association of Chief Police Officers sent out a memo warning officers to stop harassing photographers under the guise of anti-terrorism laws.
On Monday, London police detained a photographer whom they say was taking pictures in a “hostile behavior” and searched him under anti-terrorism laws.
With flashing lights and sirens, three police cars and a police van pulled up to the Merrill Lynch building that architectural photographer Grant Smith was photographing because he had not been cooperating with security guards.
According to Amateur Photographer:
Smith, who is from Australia, said that he merely declined to provide identification to the security guards, telling them: ‘I am not obliged to show it to you. I am taking photographs. I am not doing anything wrong. I am in a public space.’
The photographer was told he was being searched because he was not co-operating. ‘Under the power we have we will physically search you unless you give us the details we need, such as your address,’ an officer told him.
It is obvious Smith was only guilty of contempt of cop.
‘He was the biggest policeman I have ever seen. I just gave them the information but I said “this is such a complete nonsense, basically just because I had failed the attitude test.”‘
The photographer said this is the fifth time he has been stopped under anti-terrorism laws, all as a result of initial contact with a security gaurd. ‘They are just bullies,’ he said.
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Fernandez, as I mentioned in a 
I fess up. I gave them a whole fortnight (2 weeks) in the memo thread. I’m a terrible gambler I guess, or too optimistic.
Who had 3 days?
So there’s even closer ties between the guards and police in the U.K.? Heck, in the U.S. at least, the guards will crow and bluff about calling police but never do it 95% of the time.
Glossed over his web page, definitely a professional. Beautiful photos.
I knew this. One memo won’t get rid of the idiocrazy of LEO’s. You need a huge shitstorm before anything is going to change for real.
What happens there often times happens here later. Well well well. Time will tell.
Is anyone really surprised by this? How hard is it to sue police in pro per in the UK? When some of these Ministry jobsworths lose their life savings and their families are living in a cardboard box over a steam vent attitudes will change for the better.
You’d have to send out a memo telling them they couldn’t just push people around because they felt like it.
We can guess how well that would go over with some of them.
From Carlos’s earlier post on the alleged change in UK photographer policing policy-
See how well that worked out?
When anti-terrorism policing cockups are reduced to “he said-she said” debates, we’ll never know.
Always ALWAYS bring a cheap video-capable pocket camera, and wear it around your neck to record your police interactions!
Short of that, a tape recorder or iPhone audio capture program.
If you think you’re going to be harassed by cops/insecurity guards for snapping pics, and don’t want to come out of it looking like a total schempf, GO PREPARED TO CAPTURE EVIDENCE! Sheesh.
If I have to wear a video camera to take a bloody picture, there’s no way I’ll visit Britain. I prefer countries where I don’t need constant photographic surveillance of what’s in front of me to ensure I’m not bullied by a thick-headed and hateful police force.
@Todd Think of it as an insurance policy, one you hope to never have to call in.