Ticketed For Eating Doughnuts In A Brooklyn Playground

Originally posted by Crakeur
I hold no sympathy for anyone who would abuse a child but, in this case, I highly doubt you'd have any reason to think I am anything but a caring, cautious parent.

Exactly right. I wouldn't have any reason to believe that you might be bad just because there are some other parents out there who are. But if I go the way you go in this line of thinking then it wouldn't be wrong for me to assume the worst.

I'm curious, what would you do with photos of other people's kids? would you also want video of other people's kids? there was plenty of that as well.

tell me what you'd do with them (unless, of course, you're desire to have them is such that mentioning it would be against the Terms and Conditions of the site) because I have yet to hear anyone give a valid reason for taking pictures, or video, of strangers kids. Apparently, the most common use of these photos is photoshopping. Not sure what they do with the video, nor do I want to know. I'm hoping you'd be showing them to your friends, your collection of unknown 5 and 6 year old boys playing in the park. Do you think your friends would find it normal for you to return from the park with 25 or so pictures of young boys running around in a field?

I take pictures in public of all kinds of things. We even go out with a bunch of us sometimes and do a walk around. From previous experience if we see kids somewhere that might make an interesting picture we pretty much all jump at it. I even got high marks for one from my teacher.

reply to post by PsykoOps


see my questions above your post. I'd like to know what you'd think if you found a dozen or more photos of your son or daughter on my laptop without knowing I had been camping out, snapping pictures of your kids.


second question:
if I walked up to you and asked you, politely, to not take pictures of my kids, what would you do or say?

reply to post by Crakeur

what if you went to a friend's home and his screensaver was a picture of your 6 year old son or 8 year old daughter? worse, what if you happen to see a pile of photos and when you pick them up, they're all of your son, smiling and happy, playing and enjoying the innocence of youth. you wouldn't wonder why this friend of yours has all those photos without your knowing about them? without him asking if he could snap pictures of the innocence of youth at play?

I do have friends of mine that use my kids as screensavers and such. They don't have kids of their own, and they are very close to mine and it makes sense.

Now....a "pile" of photos of one kid might start to unnerve me a little!

second question:
if I walked up to you and asked you, politely, to not take pictures of my kids, what would you do or say?

Now that is a whole other issue. Anyone with decent intentions should be humble and apologetic if anything they did seemed inappropriate. If you asked politely and they got defensive.....kick their arse and take the camera!

I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate in my other posts, but I remember reading the account of your experience you linked to earlier, and if those guys acted suspicious and defensive, then I would have no problem getting very aggressive with them.

I might not be as quick to suspicion, but I am quick to get angry! I might be oblivious to it at first, but if a polite suggestion to stop resulted in any confrontation, I would be leaving with a few new cameras!

Originally posted by Crakeur
reply to post by PsykoOps

 

see my questions above your post. I'd like to know what you'd think if you found a dozen or more photos of your son or daughter on my laptop without knowing I had been camping out, snapping pictures of your kids.

I'd probably ask for copies if there's any good ones. I still don't get why the hysteria over pictures of children in US. Is the media over there bombing the public with boogeyman stories or what? Doesn't happen over here.

second question:
if I walked up to you and asked you, politely, to not take pictures of my kids, what would you do or say?

I'd probably ask why not? If you'd keep objecting then I might have to pull out a photographers rights paper I usually have in my bag. If that doesn't help then I'd move along and find something else to take pictures of.
Btw, if a perv comes up to you and then nicely asks if he can take pictures of your kids then it would be ok if you were to give consent?

Originally posted by getreadyalready

I do have friends of mine that use my kids as screensavers and such. They don't have kids of their own, and they are very close to mine and it makes sense.

but you either gave them the photos or were aware of them taking them. what if they did without your knowledge?

I've got plenty of pictures of friends' kids but I don't covertly take pictures of other peoples kids. the only time I take pictures of other kids is when the parents ask me to and, even then, one and done, whereas, with my own kids, I'm trigger happy.

and these are friends. what about going on an interview and you happen to notice that the man interviewing you, whom you've never met, has a picture of your child's smiling happy face as his screen saver?

Originally posted by getreadyalready
Anyone with decent intentions should be humble and apologetic if anything they did seemed inappropriate. If you asked politely and they got defensive.....kick their arse and take the camera!

and this was what freaked me out. when approached, a couple apologized and moved on, a couple said they were shooting the trees or the buildings in the distance and I pointed to a tall rock platform that was ideal for taking those pictures and they happily complied. Then there were the angry ones who thought it was not my right to ask them (I was always very polite) not to take pictures of my son. They told me they could take pictures of whatever they wanted so I said that was fair, took out my cell and said I'd take their picture. off they went. then there was the defensive folks. I'd walk up and ask them if they would mind not taking pictures of my son and they'd say "I wasn't doing anything wrong" and then they'd defend their actions. I never accused them of anything and, yet, they knew enough to defend themselves.

and then there were the folks who saw me (or other fathers) coming and just grabbed their stuff and left.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate in my other posts, but I remember reading the account of your experience you linked to earlier, and if those guys acted suspicious and defensive, then I would have no problem getting very aggressive with them.

Believe me, when the guy who clued me into this first started telling me about it, I thought he was paranoid and crazy. Then I witnessed it first hand. When I told my wife, and the baby sitter, they both thought I was nuts. Then my wife saw the creepy guy hanging around the baseball game and immediately told the other mothers what I told her.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
I might not be as quick to suspicion, but I am quick to get angry! I might be oblivious to it at first, but if a polite suggestion to stop resulted in any confrontation, I would be leaving with a few new cameras!

I am, for the most part, someone who is very trusting and rarely would I ever assume a negative about everyone like I do with this but I still haven't been given one reason why anyone would take a picture of my child without knowing them and, worse, why they would persist when asked to stop. Several of the people I spoke with that day in the park, when asked to not take pictures of the kids, agreed and then simply moved to another section of the same party. If I ask you to not do something, and you agree, why would you move to a place where you think I can't see you and then do it anyway?

reply to post by PsykoOps


if you're on your way with your best friend and he says he needs to pop in on a friend, whom you've never met and, once there, you see pictures of your 8 year old sister or 6 year old brother on his computer?

you'd be ok with that?

Why wouldn't I be? If they were legit photos and not something like what you said about photoshopping.

reply to post by PsykoOps


if you wouldn't find it odd that some random dude had pictures of your little brother or sister on their computer, I don't know what else to say.

as a parent, and a big brother, I'd be very curious as to why.

I hope that, if you have kids, you understand that all you need is one predator to take advantage of your trusting, open minded approach to protecting your children.

Me? I'd rather not ever have to experience anything of the sort before I learn the value of being overly cautious when it comes to our children.

reply to post by jude11


I live in Brooklyn not far from Bed-Stuy.
All the parks around here have clear signage that state Adults are not permitted in the playground with out having a child with them. This is to protect the kids from loose pervs.

The girls didn't follow the rules. Why they didnt get a ticket for trespass instead of a donut. I dunno

Originally posted by jude11
Since when is it illegal to eat a doughnut in a park?

Please note that NYC is super-duper desperate for money in any way, shape or form.

I avoid NYC at all costs simply because of the Police's "attitude". They need to feed NYC so they can continue working. Thus tickets are given for the smallest of infractions. It is extremely petty, but generates lots of money non-the-less. Its all part of numerous master plans to collect money via fines and violations.

Sadly, I don't think the people that were handed summonses for eating donuts in the park will be able to get out of them. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Even if the sign is not there you still have to abide by what was supposedly written on the non-existent sign. This concept is also applicable to missing parking signs, and to faded cross-walks.

I got a parking tix a while ago and there was no sign to indicate when it is legal to park - so I parked. Just because there was an accident earlier in the week that took the "no parking" sign down, I was supposed to know the rules. I paid the tix and walked away knowing that with judges like this no one has any chance of contesting the charges or winning in court. Very sad.

For a few years I had a cop in a patrol car that I would ALWAYS pass on the way to work. Whenever he saw a car coming over the hill, he would back up his patrol car so as to trigger the light change. By the time he did this anyone driving over the hill who did not notice him would already be going too fast to stop the car by the time they got to the bottom where there is a traffic light intersection. I am fortunate in that I know of this spot, and always slow down whenever I see the patrol car in this particular spot. The cop is causing the light to change in hopes of issuing tickets for blowing a red light. Since it is a real cop and not a camera, there are points attached to the summons too, so now car insurance goes up as well. I would think this is entrapment, but try arguing that with a judge who is in on the scheme. There is no winning, only losing less. (If that makes any sense.)

Unbelievable and wrong, but unfortunately true. We all need to escape from NYC!!!!

-E2