Teen photographer - ignorant guards and police

sly · Oct 25, 2012

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/10/25/bc-teen-photographer-arrest.html

Security guards and RCMP step outside the law when teen uses film camera in mall.

bobwysiwyg · Oct 25, 2012

Certainly seems extreme. Here (U.S.) shopping malls are private property so that may muddy things a bit. Still, seems over the top.

ChristopherCoy · Oct 25, 2012

Unbelievable.

ChristopherCoy · Oct 25, 2012

bobwysiwyg said:
Certainly seems extreme. Here (U.S.) shopping malls are private property so that may muddy things a bit. Still, seems over the top.

You could still sue civilly, and there isn't a jury/judge in America that wouldn't side with the 16yr old in this case.

mooseontheloose · Oct 25, 2012

So ridiculous...do they do the same thing to teens snapping photos inside the mall with their phones?

adelorenzo · Oct 25, 2012

Found his Flickr stream, he's got some great stuff.

Dead Link Removed

tony lockerbie · Oct 25, 2012

I'm shattered...I thought all Canadians were really nice.

heterolysis · Oct 25, 2012

tony lockerbie said:
I'm shattered...I thought all Canadians were really nice.

Ha. Not in Vancouver.

Aaaaanyway. Malls are private property here as well. But as someone else pointed out, there were probably a dozen people standing around taking cell phone pics, then five dozen more as this kid was getting arrested. Private property or not, it was excessive and embarrassing.

hdeyong · Oct 25, 2012

It's also not unusual. Give a high school dropout a "security" job with a badge and a little authority, and what do you expect? It's the RCMP I'm ashamed of, they should have known better.
He had been told not to take pictures inside the mall, which is the right of the owners. But, the police handled it very badly.

Stephanie Brim · Oct 25, 2012

hdeyong said:
It's also not unusual. Give a high school dropout a "security" job with a badge and a little authority, and what do you expect? It's the RCMP I'm ashamed of, they should have known better.
He had been told not to take pictures inside the mall, which is the right of the owners. But, the police handled it very badly.

Hi. I'm a high school dropout. I wouldn't do this. Nice to meet you.

Generalizations? Not so good, especially on large forums.

tomfoo13ry · Oct 26, 2012

Don't want pictures taken inside your mall?...Fine, it is your property. Tell them no pictures and then ban them from your property. If they come back then charge them with trespassing. A property owner would be well within his rights to take such action. What he doesn't have the right to do is confiscate someone else's property or meet them with any kind of unprovoked physical force. The police and the security guards involved should be ashamed.

h.v. · Oct 26, 2012

Interesting. I'm familiar with the street/documentary thing. Yeah, a mall is "private property" but it is open to public and therefore to me acts similar to public property. Despite this, security in malls can still ask you to stop, however they, nor any other security cannot confiscate film, digital media, or camera equipment (at least not without a warrant, as far as I know).

Pretty sucky what happened to this kid, I'm glad I've never had to deal with that or see someone deal with that. It is funny how the security couldn't seem to comprehend the "I can't delete the photo...it's film" thing. The news article says that the mall said the teenager failed to comply, well he couldn't. Unless he opened his film door and ruined the entire roll (or at least a portion of it...depending if he left it open and exposed) he could not "delete" the photo.

I've dealt with this very issue numerous times in photographing daily life. What's strange is it always comes from people who are definitely old enough to remember film's golden age. People just can't comprehend it and then get all fussy because you aren't doing what they tell you (because you can't). Very frustrating. It shows either how little they're actually listening to you and what your saying or how poor they are comprehending the situation at hand.

Steve Smith · Oct 26, 2012

tomfoo13ry said:
If they come back then charge them with trespassing. A property owner would be well within his rights to take such action.

Not in every country. Trespass is only a civil offence in England.

h.v. said:
Yeah, a mall is "private property" but it is open to public and therefore to me acts similar to public property.

Again in England, we have a network of public footpaths, many of which cross over private land. However, the land owner cannot stop you from photographing from a public footpath which is on his land.

h.v. said:
The news article says that the mall said the teenager failed to comply

And in this case, comply would mean destruction of property (the image) which would have been an illegal act on the part of the guard/cop ordering it. Therefore, you cannot be arrested for failure to comply to an illegal request.

Steve.

BMbikerider · Oct 26, 2012

I think a little bit of stepping back and thinking about what you are condemning here.

We only have one side of the story - his - and that just has to be biased. We don't know what the incident was. (or do we). Was he told to leave the area because of this incident and did he refuse? If he was on private property which it seems he was, that puts him on very sticky ground. If he refused to leave a property the owner or his agent will be entitled to remove him from the property, using reasonable force (in UK) but what constitutes reasonable force can vary world wide.

Was he getting in the way of those who were dealing with the incident? Was his attitude a factor? We simply don't know the full facts and therefore are not in a position to make a balanced judgement.

I also happen to agree with Stephanie Brim (previous posting) that there are too many generalisations here when we are not in full possession of information of what went on.

Steve Smith · Oct 26, 2012

BMbikerider said:
If he refused to leave a property the owner or his agent will be entitled to remove him from the property, using reasonable force (in UK)

In the UK, you can only use reasonable force to remove someone if you believe them to be a threat to other people or property. This applies to the police as well.

Police cannot remove you from a property on a trespass charge as it is a civil, not criminal matter (UK). Instead they will use a public order charge, even if it means escalting the confrontation a bit to make it appear relevant.

Steve.

BMbikerider · Oct 26, 2012

Steve I disagree with the removal part. On private property the owner or agent can remove anyone using reasonable force who is a trespasser and refuses to leave after being asked. This is common law. Would you allow anyone to wander onto your property and refused to leave when asked without doing anything about it? (Unless of course there was a right of way). However the incident took place in Canada, so this hardly applies.

The situation still remains that we are not in possession of all the facts so are not in the position to make a true and balanced assessment.

Steve Smith · Oct 26, 2012

BMbikerider said:
Steve I disagree with the removal part. On private property the owner or agent can remove anyone using reasonable force who is a trespasser and refuses to leave after being asked. This is common law.

It is not. The law states that You are comitting trespass only after you are asked to leave and refuse to do so. You cannot forcably remove someone from your property if they are posing no threat to people or property.

The problem is that if someone is trespassing, they are unlikely to comply with a polite request to leave, and if they then do not, the landowner has little if any further recourse. Section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 allows the senior police officer attending the scene of an incident involving a trespass or nuisance on land to order trespassers to leave the land and to remove their vehicles as soon as reasonably practicable. The power can only be used when there are two or more people there and "are present there with the common purpose of residing there for any period, [and] that reasonable steps have been taken by or on behalf of the occupier to ask them to leave" and either the trespassers have six or more vehicles between them, or they have caused damage to the land or to property on the land or used threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour - or both. So really it's not likely to cover anything other than a major invasion. This power is not often used, but for practical purposes this is the only instance where you might get the police to come and actually remove trespassers from a bit of land.

From this: http://www.naturenet.net/law/common.html

The only time you can use reasonable force to eject someone is if they have broken in to your property. If it is on land occupied by a shopping centre, the public have been invited in and are therefore given an implied licence to be there.

Steve.

Jeff L · Oct 26, 2012

The mall could use their cameras to make sure cameras aren't being used.

Darkroom317 · Oct 26, 2012

A mall is a rather tricky thing. Even though it is private property, individuals have no reasonable exception of privacy that is why the owners restrict it. They also can cite copyright of architecture as they did with me once. I was taking pictures of christmas lights at an outdoor mall. However, I was only told that I had to leave. Copyright of the buildings and logos of the stores is something that I am not sure of either. I think I will ask my former media law professor about this. Of course the law is probably different in Canada.

BrianShaw · Oct 26, 2012

"There’s no real threat to anyone by having a camera and snapping a picture," he [the kid's father] said."

Yes there is... the threat that is perceived is the threat of law enforcement (and mall cops) being exposed as overly-aggressive, law-breaking thugs. They fear being exposed for what they are. High school dropouts or not... most people in "secuity" jobs are there because they lack the skills to do anything more meaningful... like be a real cop.

I was tempted to photograph/video a cop the other day. He was driving like a moron because he was yakking on a cell phone, showing pictures on his phone to his partner in the passenger seat... all the while making hand gestures that included every word in the Italian dictionary. I'm glad I resisted that temptation... but it probably would have been so good it would have gone viral on Utube.

Andy K · Oct 26, 2012

BrianShaw said:
I was tempted to photograph/video a cop the other day. He was driving like a moron because he was yakking on a cell phone, showing pictures on his phone to his partner in the passenger seat... all the while making hand gestures that included every word in the Italian dictionary. I'm glad I resisted that temptation... but it probably would have been so good it would have gone viral on Utube.

Over here we do. http://youtu.be/rMphhd8QCwA

Steve Smith · Oct 26, 2012

Darkroom317 said:
They also can cite copyright of architecture as they did with me once.

They can but they would be wrong. A photograph of a building is not a copy of it. Even if it were, it would likely be the architect who owned the copyright, not the owners.

Darkroom317 said:
Copyright of the buildings and logos of the stores is something that I am not sure of either.

You can photograph them as much as you like. It's only when you publish them that you might have a problem and most likely only then if you misrepresented them. Companies put their logos on show in public for a very good reason. So they can be seen. They are not going to worry about the logo appearing in someone's photograph unless it is in some way defamatory.

Steve.

Kevin Kehler · Oct 26, 2012

In Canada, buildings can only be copyrighted for the purposes of reproduction - thus, I can take a picture of your building (and reprint it in books/online/magazines/etc.) but what I can't do is use the pictures to erect a duplicate of the building across the street. Buildings have no expectation of privacy and thus can be photographed as much as you want. As long as I am not trespassing, I can all of the pictures I want of any structure and if caught trespassing, it is the trespassing that is the issue, not the taking of the photos.

However, as it is a mall in Canada, they can refuse to permit photos but they have to clearly identify this when one enters the mall and they never have permission to make you delete/destroy them without a judge's order. Because - if it is illegal to take pictures, you are destroying evidence of a crime; if it is not illegal, they can't force you to comply just because they want to.

ic-racer · Oct 26, 2012

h.v. said:
security cannot confiscate film, digital media, or camera equipment

That is the problem. They can do whatever they want in USA, especially if they are stronger than you and have a club, or gun. Later, when you are beat up in jail it is your own responsibility to get out of jail and to sue them at your own expense.

Poisson Du Jour · Oct 26, 2012

I thought I was reading something from India or France, but then observed it is Canada. Canada! Of all places.
If it was a journalist from a local newspaper, would he/she have been treated the same? Or is it because the RCMP and guards perceived a teenager to be a nuisance worthy of taking down?
In Australia the police and guards would have been given a hiding through the courts, only they use tasers here somewhat indiscriminately.

Teen photographer - ignorant guards and police

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