Security out of hand.

This obsessed sucurity thing is WAY out of hand, dont give me garbage about not being able to take pics of train

well here this out.. Im standing on the platform at mineola (camera and tripod completly behind the blvd wall and laying down. ) thoes are the key words. Im waiting for a friend whos on a train. Low and behold who comes walking down, the MTA police.
the officer was respect full and i offered him to look me up. and i told him who i was and that i was waiting for my friend to come through he was cool about it but still took down my name and so on.

this is not security. u NEVER harass ANYONE on ANY train station bus stop ECT just because they have a tripod. and for the engineer that reported i think he needs his eyes checked as he must be blind, the tripod was not filming it was laying on the ground next to me. not in service so there for he was totally wrong. the add to the fact. now the LIRR just Degraded me and every costomer, passenger ect.. with this act. this is why the MTA gets them selves suide all the time, for plain stupididy... Any you commuters wonder why wour fars are sky high, well when i get done there going to go up.. I knew better then to even put my hands near the camera period. i wouldent dare to touch it. and i still got called it,

WAIT did some low educated sick minded indivsual pass a photoban and NOT MAKE IT PUBLIC.. ITS AGANST A LAW TO MAKE A LAW AND NOT MAKE CITIZENS AWARE THAT ITS "THE LAW" last i herd it was a PROPOSAL LAW and PROPOSAL are 2 diffrent things in the American dictionary. That poorly educatied someone should go look it up.

Having Video Equpt Vissible is NO reason to HARASS ANYONE for just STANDING on a trains station platform to be harrased.. as far as there concerned im waiting for my friend. thats it questioning over. They HAD NO AUTHORITY to start harasing for filming when i did not even have a camera ON OR SET UP
there is a such thing as SECURITY and a thing called FACISEM and this Authority is practicing FACISEM not security.

THIS IS PURE NEGLAGANCE ON BEHALF OF THE LIRR AND MTA and they will clearly here it.

Any managers or super's of the LIRR reading this forum, ill be more then happy to take this up with you. send me a PM. or ask another employee whom you know that post here to get the info for you.

7285, i completly agree. Noody should harass anybody, and this wwith the lirr police is getting rediclus. Even out at RMLI, I took a picture of the scoot, i get a millioon differnt looks. People are going outta there way to make others miserable lately. Somthing has to be done ASAP, before this gets out of hand. .whats next. . no standing o the plat for more then 3 minutes?

Also, alot of this c*** is for publicity to. . " yea yea. . we ccought a photographer. . yea" while real terrorists could be right under your toes. . any good railfan knows enought if he/she sees somthing outta place to call the proper people, now most wont because they would get accused of everythign in the book. the othoristys would ratehr mess with BS stuff like this then real problems
- Ace

on 2/12/05 I Was at The Bayshore Train Station Taking Photos with my Dad.

The Train From Montauk Stop at Bayshore and got My Photo aften He Pulled out a MTA Cop Pulled up and Said I Can't take Photos of The Trains and with that said Me and my dad went Home.

The Next Day I Called The Railroad in Jamaica if i can get a Pass So I Can Take My Railroad Photos I Like Taking Photos of Train I Am a RailFan But Heres The Funny Part you have To Pay To Take The Photos.

Called The Railroad and ask about a Pass To Take Photos and have to Call Public Affairs.

Joe

Taking pictures of a public conveyence, in a public place, without creating a problem for the public is your right. You are an American and protected by the Constitution, and that is the law of the land. This Homeland Security crap has gotten way out of hand, and is being used as an excuse to have little men with little minds show how powerful they are. Your pictures are for the historical record and nothing more. If security wants to do something useful, try checking passengers for concealed weapons or drug trafficking. Leave the hobbiests out of the paranoia and get on with living normal lives.

Nonsense. Absolute nonsense.

Maybe we as a railfan group with the National Railroad Historical Society plus the local chapters, should write up a petition, sign it and send copies to our elected officials and the local area railroad stating what is going on and what are rights are.

Mike

For one thing I do agree, and something should be done. Shall I say that if I wear my LIRR RMLI jacket, that I can't stand at a platform to wait for a train. This is nonsense in my opinion.

Thats a great idea Mike.

Long Island 7285- sorry you got stopped by the police, but that's what's going to happen these days if you hang around MTA property- the police will take notice of you and will want to talk to you. No one likes it, but what's with the rant? You're not the only one this is happening too- and it's not sudden either. Police will talk to everyone- not just kids.

-otto-

brothers,

thanks for the support.

I plan on having letters written to the high politcal agenices and the LIRRs best buddies newsday and news12 to make them look bad again in 3 weeks. harasment like this leads to lawsuites witch lead the MTA paying big bucks in psycoligal damages to the victem, witcht leads to fair hikes.

its a chain reaction everyone is effect by this game of bull defication.

me wareing my LIRR jacet if anything should not signify trubble, i got the jacet to keep me out hot water. and pre dooms day, did at one time get honored by waring it, yes one time i got free rides, pre forgoton ticket rules, , and i was always willing to pay for my ride, it was just cursity extenedt. i never asked or ask, im always ready to pay my ride period.
But thats not the point.

POINT*
You dont call a person in just for having video equpt vissible on a platform, that is no way enough evidance or crime, espically if its not set up. i will go back ther with any onw and take a pic of exatly what it looked like. so it can be used in lawsuites and as proff that its not a crime to have exposed photography/videography equpt vissible on MTA properity.

7285,

I certainly don't officially here represent either the MTA Police, or the LIRR. I am employed by the Railroad for many years in a position that handles disputes of this nature, so I'll offer a reply.

As was discusssed on this board at length, the police have every right to stop you, question you or ask you to leave the "private property" of the LIRR when you are taking pictures. The act of taking the pictures can be construed as suspicious, so this officer took your information so that you cauld be located should anything bad happen later. Remember -- that's somewhat how they caught the "Son of Sam." That's standard police work. --- "Let's find out who you are."

You say the officer was respectful, so I'd conclude he was being reasonable and doing his job. Most are and do. Contrary to what this forumn's Artistic Director has stated, it can be construed as illegal to take those pictures, so the cop could have dragged you in and detained you for a rediculously long time for questioning. Unless you kicked him and spit at him, at worse you would probably have been issued an appearance ticket and made to claim your stuff months from now. (Give me a break, Otto, and don't delete this one)

By using a tripod, an officer could have also said you were restricting movement on the platform and rendering a hazard. He probably should have done that, and I would may have requested that on behalf of the Railroad had I been called. The Railroad would have be liable if someone tripped on it, if you fried yourself on the third rail with it, or if you hit someone in the head with it.

It doesn't sound as though you had been "harrassed," as you say. You weren't pushed around, insulted or demeaned. Your stuff wasn't fondled or molested or smashed to bits. You were treated with respect and permitted to continue with your work.

Sounds like someone was looking out for you, buddy, silly and unnecessary as that may be.

Now we can get into the obscene use of the taxpayers' money to provide for a redundant MTA Police Department to do useless things like this, but that's not what you asked. Or we can look at the history of the MTA Police, the history of its predecessor, the LIRR Police which was among the oldest in the country and who worked for the Superintendent -Transportation who doubled as Chief of Police.

We could talk about a 1980's LIRR Vice President who, in the role as Police Commissioner, carred a nickled S&W J revolver...

Thats all for another day.

In the meantime, might you consider a good spell checker? It will make your posts easier for all of us to read, and make you appear even smarter than you already do.

Clemuel

For some reason this forum posted my reply on the bottom of this page...

Scroll down if you're interested in my comments on 7285's harrassment and his spelling.

Well said Clem.

Clem,

I respect what you have to say, and you do make some good and vaild points. However, 7285 also makes several good points that may have gotten lost in the shuffle due to the rant-like nature of the post.

First of all, it strikes me as very odd that both 7285 and LIJoe were approached in the same week despite being miles apart; there is obviously some crackdown on photographers going on here that is without a legal basis. The bottom line is that there is no law prohibiting photography on MTA property. The only recourse an officer would have to remove someone would be if they were without a valid reason to be there, in which case they officer could choose to romove them for loitering. However, being that he was waiting for someone, this would be a non-issue.

Second, although the officer's intentions may have been perfectly innocent, the fact remains that he did not have any probable cause to approach 7285 at all. Look at the facts: he was waiting on a PUBLIC train platform for someone arriving and presumably there were other people on the platform as well; I'm willing to bet no one else was approached. Most importantly, though, he was not engaged in any behavior that would be indicative of a criminal act. Do you realize that had 7285 been found to be carrying a kilo of cocaine, the DA probably couldn't have made the charges stick; the officer lacked probable cause to approach 7285 and thus anything he discovered would be inadmissable (I am not by any means a legal expert, but I believe I am correct in this case; feel free to disagree if you know better than I do).

Please let me explain my idea somewhat better.

On the LIRR property, the MTA police can ask you what you are doing and tell you to go, it's their land. As long as they are polite, do as they say. That's not the time or place to pick a fight. On public land, that is where things are getting somewhat out of hand. This the area we need to get fixed. And if we can get the MTA to get off our backs at the stations, that will be a big plus. But, and this is a big BUT, if you give the cops a hard time, we're all going to loss big time. We all need to be the bigger persons. I know it sucks to get chased, I have had it happen to me over in New Jersey, so I know the feeling. We have to do this the right way or we won't have a leg to stand on. Getting the press involved is another option. We have to do this one step at a time. The first step, I believe is this petition. Lets start from there.

Mike

PS: Please don't ask me to compose this letter. I'm not a good writer by any stretch of the imagination.

lirrmike wrote: PS: Please don't ask me to compose this letter. I'm not a good writer by any stretch of the imagination.

If you guys are seriously looking for someone to compose a letter and/or petition, I'm willing to work on it; you're talking to someone who has had a perfect 4.0 in English all through high school.