Local town's Twitter feed of their police log - Don't own a camera, and certainly don't try to do your job when you're near kids

TheWardylan · 2017-10-29T19:47:48+00:00

Funny story time. I live in a small town so this is relevant.

A friend of mine works for the county government in the roads and civil engineering department. So obviously he has to go out to sites and document things.

We recently had a hurricane and so a lot of infrastructure was damaged. It was near a park in a newer development so think lots of stay at home mom types out a few days after the storm is gone. Well that combined with the calls about dangerous conditions meant that this road fix was a high priority. Additionally it was off of an intersection so it had to be fixed to alleviate traffic which had to be diverted.

So this county employee is in full vest, hard hat, with his uniform on of a button down and work pants and work boots. He's taking pics and radioing in things. He clears the crew to start the project and they get to work.

Well a few minutes later a county sheriffs deputy shows up and approaches my friend who he recognizes both personally and as the supervisor. They are small talking all the while the deputy is looking around. The deputy sheriff tells my friend that there had been calls about a man taking pictures. Well there was no immediate emergency and my friend was headed back toward his truck so the two of them walk together. The deputy had parked his patrol car next to the other county vehicle. At least then he would know it was safe and/or would be able to handle it if it was damaged.

As the duo are walking a few moms stroll up to the deputy saying "that's the guy" and "how did you find him?" The deputy is confused and asks the ladies a few questions. They stated they had seen my friend taking pictures of the children. The deputy responds "well ma'am he's with the county they are out here fixing the road and collecting debris from the storm." One of the moms responds "at least they didn't take as long this time." Referencing the hurricane the year before.

At this point both my friend and the responding officer try and clear things up that my friend is doing his job and the moms just are not buying it. They insist by now saying that my friend had walked up to the children at the park and taken pictures too.

At this point my friend and the deputy are both shocked by what these moms are saying. My friend offers to show his county issued camera to the deputy which he accepts. He inspects the photos and dismisses the call. But he doesn't say anything.

Instead the deputy takes the women to their vehicles , parked on the other side of the park, and takes their affidavits.

Then he returns to my friend and tells him what's up. The deputy shows the women all the photos on the camera. None of them have any pictures with the kids as the focus. None of them are close at all. My friend fills out his sworn statement and the deputy returns to his vehicle. All the while the crews keep working. None of this has stopped them from working as the confrontation occurs away from the immediate work site.

The deputy returns with a few pieces of paper. Both moms had out of date tags, one had a window that was suspiciously dark. When the tinted window mom goes to open her door to roll the window down so the device can be attached to check it, a couple pills fall out.

Now in Florida we now take pills very seriously. The lady didn't have a prescription. Turns out she was using some of her daughters pain pills from a soccer injury a few months before. Apparently the daughter hasn't used them all and mommy couldn't just drink more wine, so she takes pills too.

Pill mom gets hits with filing a false report, expired registration, 2 counts possession of a controlled substance, and a citation for the dark windows. She gets booked.

The other mom just gets the false report citation, and the kids all get home safe.

TL;DR noisy nosey paranoid moms try to cause trouble and get popped for lies and drugs.

omnimon_X · 2017-10-29T13:16:37+00:00

Obviously a tweet doesn't explain the whole situation but Legion Field is the name of the Little League fields in this town. Not really sure what the town employee was supposed to do about there being kids in the area.

64Olds · 2017-10-29T17:51:51+00:00

I had this happen to me: was in a hard hat and safety vest taking photos of trees which happened to be near a playground (ie doing my friggin' job) and got hassled by some overprotective she-beast. Like, calm the fuck down, lady - not everyone looking in your precious snowflake's general direction is a diddler.

skallyd · 2017-10-29T18:09:09+00:00

Male taking pictures Dun Dun Dun :0

Oh, turns out it's Ansel Adams.

thinkdeep · 2017-10-29T19:43:35+00:00

This happened more than a few times while I was a journalist in a small town. Parents would accuse me of the worst shit imaginable even after I proved them who I was. They never cared and threatened to call the cops.

My answer was always the same, "Please do, I'll wait."

The thing was I knew all the cops. The usual thing that happend was they would pull up, see me, and proceed to talk to me for about five minutes about nothing while I gave the person (typically a lady) the biggest shit-eating grin I could muster.

DO_YOU_EVEN_BEND · 2017-10-29T20:02:54+00:00

A rapist in mind is a rapist in kind.

If your first conclusion is that that man is there to fuck those children then you probably got children-fucking on the mind...

BluNautilus · 2017-10-29T22:08:09+00:00

It just pisses me off that
Man + camera = OK
Man + kids = Sometimes OK
Man + camera + kids = Not OK

There's literally hundreds of reasons for someone to take pictures while kids happen to be in the vicinity. If he was from the town I doubt he was even getting the kids in the frame to begin with. People are just looking to criminalize men for anything.

PaulMurrayCbr · 2017-10-30T00:37:40+00:00

As Maggie McNeil pointed out - moral panics don't flame out until they start to affect middle-class white women.

SilentKiller96 · 2017-10-29T18:44:16+00:00

Omg did they just assume his gender??!

weezel365 · 2017-10-30T00:22:44+00:00

Is this Legion Field in Birmingham?

somefinfishy · 2017-10-30T08:33:11+00:00

This happens all over, i used to belong to a photographic society, every man there had stories of being called paedophiles whilst trying to take pictures of town scenes and kids happening to be around. A friend has had his picture posted on facebook twice as a warning as he was taking pictures of kids, his photos are of coastal scenes for a book he was making, some amazing pictures that he will no longer bother with as he is now demonised, I was even asked to do some photo shoots at a gymnastics club and could hear the comments. I don't bother any more.

Dad365 · 2017-10-29T20:20:33+00:00

Thats right ... lets shame the public into not calling. That way a few more kids could be kidnapped. Send the cops. Let them check it out. City workers have done bad stuff before. Its ok to call it in. This is a good thing.

Title	Local town's Twitter feed of their police log - Don't own a camera, and certainly don't try to do your job when you're near kids
Author	omnimon_X
Upvotes	972
Comments	77
Date	October 29, 2017 1:12 PM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/79gemt/local_towns_twitter_feed_of_their_police_log_dont/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/local-towns-twitter-feed-of-their-police-log-dont.912181 https://theredarchive.com/post/912181

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