Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/12/14

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Busted with my M2
From: "Steve LeHuray" <icommag@toad.net>
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 19:06:45 -0500

> Howdy
> That's weird
> Were you or your wife carrying press credentials?
> They usually avoid trouble with reporters at all cost.
> Whatever the case I'm glad that you feel secure in
> the knowledge that the arrest was illegal. I'm no lawyer but
> I guess that in these circumstances, the right to redress
> a grievance implies a prior obligation on the part of the grievant
> to permit the actions which led to that grievance to occur
> in the first place. I'll remember that if a guy tries to mug me.
> I'll just give him my wallet, smile and say "see you in court
> mister mugger" All I can say is next time bring a gun and be
> prepared to empty it out several dozen times.
> Lefties..........
> See Ya
> Javier

Javier,

I was in that same city block (with two M2's) where the police had
barricaded some 600 protesters and media for about two hours. They announced
with a bullhorn that the media had 15 minutes to leave. At that ppoint the
demonstrators in unison started to cry out for the media to stay. I left
along with other media, some stayed including Washington Post Pulitzer
winning PJ Carol Muzy, they got arrested. It did not matter to the police
whether you had press credentials or not.

Steve
Annapolis

>
>
> Aaron Ruby wrote:
>
>> on 12/13/00 10:28 PM, Marc James Small at msmall@roanoke.infi.net wrote:
>>
>> > At 09:42 PM 12/13/2000 -0500, Aaron Ruby wrote:
>> >> And for those of you who are prone to testing the shutters of your cameras
>> >> in adverse environments, I can tell you that the M2 performs flawlessly
>> >> inside of D.C. jail cells ;)

>>
>> My wife (a journalist for Fortune and FSB) and I were picked up with 600
>> other folk as part of a pre-emptive arrest the day before the big IMF rally
>> in D.C. Unfortunately, no, we did not beat the rap, which boiled down to
>> 'parading' without a permit. After 20hours on a bus and 10 inside, wherein
>> we were denied access to counsel, water, restrooms and knowledge of our
>> charge, we posted and forfeitted for $50. The good news is that it was
>> clearly an illegal arrest and we are part of a civil action against the
>> city. The bad news is that the city set aside money ahead of time for just
>> such a contingency, knowing that they were going to make several such mass
>> arrests, which they did. In fact, the legal aid hotline that had been set up
>> to help arrestees get timely attorney advice was jammed for several hours
>> with false calls. During that time, hundreds of arrestees were finally
>> allowed to use a phone were unable to get through to their attorney. When
>> the legal aid team finally had the phone company give a reverse listing for
>> the line dialing in with the bogus calls the number that came up was none
>> other than that of the Metro P.D. crime lab. Hooray for democracy! :(
>>
>> At any rate, though they never took away my M2, they did eventually discover
>> it and tried to remove the film. Upon encountering the Leica loading system,
>> however, they were stumped, and  on pain of seeing them destroy the shutter
>> curtain, I willingly removed the film myself. A real shame. I had what I
>> think would have been some nice shots with my attached Cosina 25mm. They
>> also destroyed my wife's reporter's notebook. I guess after a hard day of
>> stomping on people's constitutional rights the last thing you need is a
>> bunch of pesky journalists and photographers mucking around.
>>
>> Aaron
>