Los Angeles Police Coerce Photographers off Public Sidewalk

On 5/23 around 7:30-7:45 PM, myself and 2 other photographers , one unnamed and one Branin Johnson arrived at Henry Ford Blvd and Anaheim Street (MAP) to photograph the amazingly beautiful and interesting industrial area. See the pics below.


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Here are street view pics of the bridge in both directions







We noticed as we walked along the sidewalk with our cameras that we were being followed by an obscure and suspicious looking guy in a SUV. I took some pictures in case he was casing our car or our gear, which in fact it seemed like he was doing.









Apparently He is Officer Weiss from the LAPD serial # R2676, and his license plate is 5UPK086, He parked along the street illegally blocking traffic and called us into HQ, apparently photographers who stand obviously with tripods on public sidewalks cant be trusted to exercise their constitutional rights without giving away whats freely available already on Google maps (And in better detail) to terrorists.
During our encounter we tried to engage him in conversation but he refused to acknowledge us as humans and just stood there looking like he wanted to rob us.

Shortly after being surveyed, we were converged upon by one of many police cruisers




According to the LAPD Online, Thomas Malloy was an OFFICER III in 2003. I would expect someone of this level of training to be able to cite a law when giving a lawful order, and not resort to coercion and threats based in no legality whatsoever. He denied repeated requests to offer details of ANY law we were breaking. Worse, he stated we could not record him in public audibly, and told me to stop taking pictures of him, to which I snapped a few more then stopped as he repeatedly told me to stop or he would put me away.

When asked what law I was violating other then just his bullying opinion as he has no legal expectation of privacy from a public sidewalk, he had no response but to shift weight from his gun hand to his hip. I'm actually getting very used to being "Lied" to by police officers. This is not a good thing, and its not legal. But hey, they have guns and we don't, so deal with it.


OFFICER THOMAS MALLOY, Badge # 8641(from the picture) Serial #22934




His boss SGT Chacoh serial #22030 was just as bad if not worse, he said we had to leave the city and go to another one to shoot pictures. Again, no law was given even after many many requests. I asked him if they would arrest us for not complying, he said "They were not saying that" I asked what they were saying then? He just said we had to leave the area, and if not we would get a trip to the station. I asked again what the charge would be (If any) and no answer again. I explained this is a textbook definition of coercion. They were not willing to cite any law, or talk any further about it, since the SGT had forbidden me from taking pictures of him and they told us we could not audio record them or else they would put us in jail we had no hard evidence of what they had said. I am probably going to have to legally sequester the dash-cams as evidence if I ever want to get hard evidence.

The names and serial numbers written on the card I requested are almost unreadable, and there is one extra serial serial number with no name attached to it, making me wonder if any of them are correct.

I had called the number on the card to see if I could appeal to a higher power only to be told by whomever answered the phone @ 310 726-7700 that I could be put in a federal prison for 10-15 years for taking pictures of refineries. Sounds reasonable to me !

Once again, we obeyed an un-lawful order from guys who are sworn and paid to uphold and enforce guess what: "The Law". I guess the law is whatever the MOOD dictates.
There is no evidence we've seen that shows pictures taken from night with horrible shadow detail to any correlation to past attempts at terrorism, linking hobby art photography to potential terrorism is like saying that terrorists drive cars so we should ban all cars in the city of LB and LA.

Once again, the terrorists already won guys. Is this what we want happening in our country ?


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Harbor Area
2175 S John S. Gibson Blvd, San Pedro, CA

Phone 310 726-7700
Fax 310 726-7739

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Office of the Inspector General Los Angeles Police Dept.

Info
http://www.ci.la.ca.us/oig/isgig2a.htm

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Phone (213) 202-5866.
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Email oigcompl@lapd.lacity.org
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City Council member for that area
District 15 - Janice Hahn

City Hall Office (213)-473-7015
200 N. Spring Street, Rm 435
Los Angeles, CA 90012
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Map of District
EMAIL JANICE councilmember.hahn@lacity.org
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