Man arrested for taking photos of cheerleaders pt. II

Why aren't the people who allowed, nay, encouraged these girls to show their "sensitive areas" to a stand full of hundreds of adults, under arrest?

This is a situation where, plain and simple, photography is a crime.

He's allowed to witness said "sensitive areas", but not photograph them. This is a legal contortion.

Usually, the restrictions for photography/videography are due to copyright issues and the like. I don't think I've ever seen a situation where something was legal to witness with your own two eyes, but CRIMINAL to photograph.

I mean, this is in public, so there's no expectation of privacy. It's not like the shots were taken through someone's bathroom window. Most likely, the guy was one of numerous photographers there.

I sure hope the guy sues for false arrest, but I fear he won't. I mean, if his intent was so nefarious, why on earth would he consent to a search of his camera? Without his consent, the police would need a warrant to view them.

And what would their probably cause have been?

"Suspect appeared to be, uh, creepy ..."

Sadly, people always support the arrest of someone they don't personally like. The 80% cares nothing of slipper slopes or selective enforcement ... they just see "guy I think is creepy got arrest, I support that!"

In the end, nothing can be done. This is human behavior which has repeated for as long as there has been human civilization.

The 20% get the world the 80% wants, and there's not much that they can do about it.

I'm saddened, but not shocked to read these responses.

I have 3 daughters, all still school aged, but I could not agree with you more strongly.

There is no greater threat to civil rights than the selective enforcement of non-laws because someone is too creepy, unpopular, uncool, whatever.

If taking pictures of teenage girls at public events is illegal, than make the law known. As it stands now, there is NOTHING illegal about being "creepy". Face it, this guy is being discriminated against because of his appearance. Had he been a hot 23 year-old blonde woman, there would be no issue. Yet here you all are, applauding a man being thrown in a cage because he's what ... foreign, male, oh and of course he has pictures of "sensivite cheerleader areas" ... I have question for you ... how is it legal for these girls to show said "sensivitve" areas in public, but it's not legal to photograph it?

If these girls are being "sexually exploited" by being photographed in their cheerleading clothing, then why are not the parents being arrested for tacitly allowing them to compete in said clothing?

But bottom line ... how can it be illegal to photograph something, that you can sit in the stands and openly watch with your own two eyes? It makes NO sense. Photographing and event that is publicly and willingly performed cannot be "exploitation" unless the event itself is expoitation. If people are so worred about "creeps" getting their jollies, then make the outfits less revealing. But no, the school and the parents give them the short skirts, then clutch their perals that someone might be commiting a thought crime in the presense of these girls.

What self-serving puritanical tripe.

And wait, if he had a daughter there it would be legal ... his crime is not having a daugther there? My God. Listen to yourselves.

You cannot control what another person thinks. You cannot do it. If a man sits front row in a cheerleading competition, and thinks impure thoughts the whole time, you can't throw him in a cage for it. At least not in anything approaching a free nation (not suggesting we're anything close, but people do like repeating the mantra). I mean, think about it, why are cheerleading outfits designed the way they are? Coincidence? Short skirts which liberally bounce up to reveal the panties of the wearer ... and the pearl-cluthers are aghast, AGHAST THEY'LL TELL YOU that anyone, nay, ANYONE is titilatted by the sight of teenage girls flashing their panties at an audience.

Oh please.

Alas, this is more "though doth protest too much" nonesense that permiates the human experience. Everyone denigrates the "outsider" to prove that THEY weren't getting a stiff while looking at 16 year-old girls in short skirts ... oh perish the thought. That's only something shadly-looking foreigners do, and we must be ever-vigilant against them. After all, the police can't be everwhere.kkk

So what that he didn't break any law! So what that he was taking pictures of somethign the public was invited to pay for and witness! Doesn't matter! We'll make up a law on the spot and arrest him for it! That's what ever-vigilant people in a free country, do. Screw civil rights ... mob-rule is a way better way to go.

As long as you're part of the Mob.

And for the inevitable, "How would you feel if ..." questions, my answer is that it doesn't matter how I would feel. If laws were based on how I feel, dare I say every other rush hour commuter but myself would currently be sitting on death row. There's a reason we don't allow alleged-victim's families to sit on juries. It's exactly becaust I WOULD have an emotional reaction that the law should be followed instead of my instinct, which would be to punch the guy in the face.

Then again, if I thought someone could "sexually-exploit" my daughters with a camera at an event, I wouldn't let them publicly perform in such a situation where that was possible. At the very least, I'd make sure their skirts stayed below their knees. If you think the caging of this man removed every impure thought from said event, you're insane. At least most of them look like you, though. There's just something about one of "those people" eye-humping the school girls that really gives you the willies. I mean, EWWWWWWWWWW. Amirite?

In a cage you go.

The charges will not stick, though.

The guy didn't break any laws, and if what he did was "sexual exploitation", then every parent there was an accomplice. The real travesty is that they weren't arrested so that they, too, could see the folly of their drama.

I'm really saddened to have read some of these opinions in a photography forum. As many of you know, photography is already a de-facto crime to many, and advocate for this man's arrest just because you don't like him just perpetuates this whole photograph = evil nonsense.

tko said:

...You are trying to read the intent of the person taking the photo--and since when is intent illegal?

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Intent can easily be illegal. Sit down with a friend, and plan to rob a bank. That's a crime, even before the bank is robbed.

I suspect it is also a crime to buy explosives with the intent to commit a terrorist act.

It turns out that intent also plays a role in whether or not a photograph is pornography. Take a closeup image for a medical journal, and the image may be fine. Run that same image in a "nudie" magazine and it may be pornography. Context and intent are important.

CoolDiscoRex said:

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But bottom line ... how can it be illegal to photograph something, that you can sit in the stands and openly watch with your own two eyes? It makes NO sense.

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Whether or not something makes sense is a separate question from whether or not it is legal. There are many things about the law that don't seem to make sense.

Consider some naked toddlers playing in the sand by the surf. I suspect that there is nothing inherently illegal in that situation. Just some kids enjoying the beach.

Take a photo of the beach with those kids in it, and you are probably OK, as long as the nudity is incidental to the image. If it's just some family snapshots of the kids having fun, it's probably OK.

Now take a telephoto lens and zoom in on a crotch. Pass that image along to a known pedophile, and the image is likely illegal kiddie porn.

Yes, it is possible to photograph a legal public activity in such a way that the resulting image is illegal child porn.

I am not commenting on whether or not this makes sense, merely that this is the current US law.

CoolDiscoRex said:

Then again, if I thought someone could "sexually-exploit" my daughters with a camera at an event, I wouldn't let them publicly perform in such a situation where that was possible. At the very least, I'd make sure their skirts stayed below their knees. If you think the caging of this man removed every impure thought from said event, you're insane. At least most of them look like you, though. There's just something about one of "those people" eye-humping the school girls that really gives you the willies. I mean, EWWWWWWWWWW

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Now we get into an interesting area.

Suppose a pedophile takes an innocent photo of your underage daughter wearing modest clothes at a spelling bee. The pedophile then uses it for personal sexual gratification.

Under US law, as long as the image is not a closeup of her crotch, it is likely not child pornography. Yet, many parents would feel that this situation exploited, and perhaps harmed, their child.

I think most real world objections are from parents who fear the above. While these photos likely are legal in the USA, it is not something that makes a parent happy. I suspect we will see some varied opinions as to whether he should have been allowed to take those images.

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One of the things that makes this difficult to discuss is that there are a number of different but related questions:

• What does the law prohibit?
• What is allowed by the venue?
• What is reasonable behavior?
• What do parents want?

Not everyone is talking about the same question. Most of these questions can be subdivided into what are the rules/desires, and whether the rules/desires are resonable.

Cooldiscorex, Very well said ! I agree with every point you've made. Nothing smells worse than a truckload of hypocrisy.

We can speculate till the cows come home and debate but in photography they say a picture is worth a thousand words, let's see those pictures!

I have shot countless pictures of girls competing in gymnastics, ballet, and dance, it is a fine line. I often do take pictures of other dancers/competitors for practice, for joy of getting the shot. At least I'd like to say in my case any parent/father is free to scan my computer, HDD, and cards.. the proof is in the pictures, hard to hide intent there.

Now on quick read, clearly on the one snippet they are trying to incite the public with snippets of age and in-appropriate etc. etc. Not condoning his subject, shot selection or fetish, but hard to figure out if he broke the law, but for all photographers this bears watching as in the internet frenzied world simple things can quickly spin out of control as one Oscar has found out

...thread is dead.

Michael Fryd said:

Kung Fu said:

Michael Fryd said:

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Utterly absurd, and if true it just shows that our "laws" are often as bizarre and capricious as something out of Kafka, or Alice In Wonderland (Lewis Carroll being someone else accused without evidence of being a pervert).

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Many of our laws are absurd. But they are our laws.

If you think some laws are wrong, vote for people who will change them.

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Or for people who ignore the ones they do not like.

Most child sex offending is carried out by parents or close relatives of said child.

tko said:

tko said:

In the West, modesty usually falls on men, who are expected not to look at women lasciviously, no matter how they dress, particularly if the women consider the men undesirable. This of course extends to photography.

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Isn't that like a baker making fresh bread near an open window, then asking the people in the street who have no money not to inhale the aroma?

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Yeah, it's a bit like that.

Of course it's a logical contradiction, but the idea is to both give women greater freedom of dress and action, while also punishing men who act poorly.

Uniqumm said:

You mean like a Victorian tea party transplanted to the strand, long, warm, very warm, garments and all?

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Victorian women sometimes wore shockingly low-cut dresses.

I'm thinking rather of those countries where women are required to be completely covered.

Mark S Abeln said:

Of course it's a logical contradiction, but the idea is to both give women greater freedom of dress and action, while also punishing men who act poorly.

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I agree. Why should the bad actions of a few spoil it for the rest of us ?

But the question is, what is acting poorly, and what should the punishment be? Look down a neckline and go to jail? Sell underage videos of cheerleaders and go free? And the standards are consistently changing.

COYQ said:

Most child sex offending is carried out by parents or close relatives of said child.

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Or neighbors

or people in a position of trust, like priest, boy scout leader, any coach...(Sandusky at Penn State, for example) they gravitate to positions of trust with children where they can manipulate that trust to their own ends.

johncecilian said:

or people in a position of trust, like priest, boy scout leader, any coach...(Sandusky at Penn State, for example) they gravitate to positions of trust with children where they can manipulate that trust to their own ends.

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In terms of parental objections, it not the reality that matters, but the perception.

If the parents trust the people most like to abuse children and fear strangers with cameras, then photographers will be unfairly targeted.

Michael Fryd said:

MaxCh said:

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The school principle recently lectured the entire assembly of parents on how to take pics of their kids when other kids are around. He seemed really concerned about parents posting pics of other kids on social media.

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Schools are free to set policies that are far more restrictive than what the law requires.

Societal expectations of privacy are changing. Older parents grew up in a time of more privacy than what we typically see today. It can be a challenge to reconcile the desires of older parents (who are used to privacy) with the expectations of younger parents and kids (who are used to announcing bowel movements to the world).

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Sure, the school principal has a tough job and he is doing the best he can. The ability of parents to take pictures is probably not his highest priority. Still....it is kind of annoying to have to go through so much hassle just so I can come to school and take few pictures at Halloween and Xmas parties. I did it anyway as it was worth to me.

Mindnumbing stupidity, because the real world is one in which your kids can legally research and watch anything online themselves, because they are minors. THey can watch stuff on ANY mobile platform- the phones you buy them, the laptops, the PDAs, your home computers, so actual pornography, being perfectly legal to view is something many of them recognize has absolutely nothing to do with filming them strutting their stuff in the costumes YOU have provided them with, sexualizing them far too early to the MAX yourselves.

You are wrecking your kids lives yourselves, and how many hundreds of parents at these shows film their kids and then post it all online? Everyone does and the kids do too.

So IF you are really concerned perfect yourselves before you pick on some guy like you, doing exactly what you do all the time every day of your lives.

Then stand in front of the TV AND then switch it off if your kids are watching all that violence you expose them too in your homes day and night, and set parental controls on all computers, and confiscate all any any devices that give them access potentially to any damaging stuff.

The way a lot of people commenting here express themselves, and the way the father muttered on and on on the video shows how easily totally innocent people get persecuted as a result of your really stupid thoughts, I mean really stupid.

Such bigotry and hatred gets people murdered on a daily basis all over the globe. You should all really be ashamed of yourselves, because CCTV and cameras keep kids SAFE in public for a start, they lower the risk of attacks, abductions, theft and crime generally. People in camera-ridden countries where we all have mobiles think twice before doing ANYTHING!!!

johncecilian said:

or people in a position of trust, like priest, boy scout leader, any coach...(Sandusky at Penn State, for example) they gravitate to positions of trust with children where they can manipulate that trust to their own ends.

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That's probably the overarching aspect in them all.

Michael Fryd said:

johncecilian said:

or people in a position of trust, like priest, boy scout leader, any coach...(Sandusky at Penn State, for example) they gravitate to positions of trust with children where they can manipulate that trust to their own ends.

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In terms of parental objections, it not the reality that matters, but the perception.

If the parents trust the people most like to abuse children and fear strangers with cameras, then photographers will be unfairly targeted.

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Actually, a creepy stranger who was photographing 10-14 year old cheerleaders was targeted. And it was found that he is someone to worry about.

How is that unfair?

Here's the unfair part: some predatory creep gains the trust of a circle of family and friends and then predates on children. And then, people within that circle who know about it don't typically tell others or turn the creep in and others suffer for it.

So no, I'm not too worried about the theoretical what-ifs of strange photographers being unfairly shut down for shooting photos of young girls - not in the least. I think the system worked on this guy.