USA - Arrested for Photographing a Train

[John Ashworth]

Arrested for Photographing a Train: "It's Almost Embarrassing"

Feb 18, 2009
pdn
By Daryl Lang

Last week in New York City, a fan of trains was arrested for photographing a train. It might be funny if it didn’t keep happening.

Robert S. Taylor of Brooklyn was taking photos for fun last Thursday in a subway station. Police saw him and cited him for unauthorized photography, disorderly conduct/unreasonable voice and impeding traffic.

The charge of unauthorized photography – a crime that doesn’t exist – has already been dropped, Taylor says.

“It’s almost embarrassing,” Taylor says. “It was a waste of everybody’s time.”

His summons reads “[Police officer] observed respondent taking photos from the [southbound] platform of incoming/ongoing trains without authority to do so by [the Transit Authority].” The citation cites section 1050.9(C) of the MTA rules of conduct. Ironically, that’s the rule that permits photography “in any facility or conveyance.”

Adding further irony, Taylor is an employee of the MTA, which operates the New York City Subway. He was off duty at the time.

Photo advocacy groups have been complaining for years about police harassment of photographers in public places such as train stations. The problem surged after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and continues today, despite several recent cases that ended in settlements for the photographers.

“It’s not just New York City Transit, it’s across the country,” says newspaper photographer Todd Maisel, who serves as Region 2 director for the National Press Photographers Association and vice president of the New York Press Photographers Association. “The problem is police officers are not being properly trained.”

Taylor’s run-in with transit police happened Thursday afternoon. Taylor had time to kill before a dinner date in Times Square, so he rode the subway to Freeman Street, a lightly used elevated station in the Bronx.

“That station comes in off at a curve. It’s a nice little shot,” Taylor says. Taylor uses a Nikon D80 to take pictures in his spare time for use as wallpaper on his computer and his cell phone.

After he photographed a train, a police officer on the platform asked Taylor to stop taking pictures. “He tells me pictures aren’t allowed, and I told him that’s not true,” Taylor says.

As they debated the rule, a second officer arrived from another platform and supported the first. Taylor asked to speak to a supervisor. A transit police sergeant arrived and backed up the two other officers. “I said, ‘If I’m wrong, write the summons and I’ll fight it in court,’” Taylor says.

The police officers were unimpressed. They handcuffed Taylor and took him to a transit police district for processing, where he was held a short time and released. The photography charge was dropped, but Taylor has a court date to answer the other two charges in April.

“I’ve been stopped before, but in the previous stops everything has gone well,” Taylor says. This time, “It’s bad. Look what I have to go through.”

In 2004, the MTA proposed a ban on photography in the subway, justifying it as a way to protect the subway from terrorists. The proposal died after an outcry from photographers and the public.

From Taylor's case, it's clear photographers are still being stopped. Taylor wrote an account his arrest on the Subchat, a message board popular with subway fans. The story made its way to two photography blogs, War on Photography and Photography is not a Crime, and ultimately to The New York Times, which published a story about Taylor on Wednesday. “I’m not used to this attention,” Taylor says.

Several photographers in New York City have collected settlements in recent cases where they were wrongfully arrested.

One recent case concerned photographer Duane Kerzic, who was arrested last year by Amtrak Police while taking pictures of trains on the lower platforms of New York Penn Station.

Kerzic’s case was even the subject of a comedy sketch earlier this month on The Colbert Report. Maisel, of the NPPA, and Kerzik were both interviewed for the TV show.

“The day after that segment aired, Duane Kerzic got a five-figure settlement,” Maisel says.

Last year, New York City settled a lawsuit with a student who was detained while working on a project to photograph every subway stop, according to The New York Times. The student, Arun Wiita, was arrested on a public sidewalk and was the subject of a lawsuit filed with support from the New York Civil Liberties Union.

In 2007, the NYPD paid a $14,000 settlement to filmmaker Rakesh Sharma, who was arrested filming on a public sidewalk near Grand Central Terminal. That case, also led by the NYCLU, led the city to draft a set of clearer rules about when permits are required for public photography and filming.