"I'm going to take all your cameras ... You've got 10 seconds before I make you go."

<p>Mr Hingel wrote:</p>

<p>"Third lesson: If she had been a cop, armed with a gun, someone would have been seriously hurt."</p>

<p>Private property or not, she was not a police officer. She had no right to draw her weapon as she was not under attack, in fact, she did the attacking, illegally. In most states, that's called assault and battery. It is a criminal offense. It was well documented. Firing is not enough. She should be arrested and prosecuted (provided the mall owners don't have the political suction to keep the real police from doing their proper job). Demanding property without a weapon is also called attempted strong arm robbery. She should be charged with that, although it would probably be dismissed in a plea deal over the assault and battery.</p>

<p>Furthermore, the property owner is responsible for her actions. If you were their attorney, how many hundred thousand dollars would you advise your client to settle for, rather than have a jury watch that video and award the gal in the helmet the sun, the moon, and the stars? I don't think it was a gun on her belt. Good thing too. People like that should not be tasked to carry guns by their employer. She obviously didn't have the temperament.</p>

<p>You said someone could get hurt. You're right. I carried a gun most of my life, legally. If I had been with a group and some mall wannabe rent-a-cop puke who was obviously out of control pulled a gun, I would consider it a threat to me and mine. At that point, I would have put a bullet in her head. With witnesses like that and a videotape, I doubt I would have been arrested unless the cops were on the pad. If arrested, how would I be convicted when an out of control person pulls out a gun which endangers every single person in the vicinity with loss of life? If convicted wrongly, they could sentence me to twenty years, but (at 93) I'll die long before that with a smile on my face and my second finger extended. Besides, with the cost of the medicine I'm taking, I'd be better off with their paying for it and they would rather have the several new police cars that they couldn't buy that year for having bought my medicine.</p>

<p>Pixel Peta made the comment that the fellow in the orange shirt defused the situation. He was told by the bystanders as he approached, that the security guard had in fact attacked the woman in the helmet. His response was to restrain the woman in the helmet, only to have the guard go for the woman again. I'm surprised the people with her let that happen. He committed assault and battery. Had that young lady been my granddaughter and I was there, as he was putting his hands on her, I would have pressed my cane against the side of his knee and slammed my hip into it. Once a knee is broken sideways like that, although with modern medicine, the man would probably walk again, it would never be without a limp. He might have thought he was acting with good intentions, but he certainly could have escalated the situation into an overall brawl. What an idiot. He's just lucky he didn't pay the price.</p>

<p>Our society has given petty people like that a feeling of power and security. If there is someone who will stand up, or even someone like me with nothing to lose, they could easily die for their arrogance. It happens. Death cannot be overturned in court.</p>

<p>Mr. L wrote:</p>

<p>“Maybe she was under orders to keep people from loitering because they were going to have emergency vehicles coming through?”</p>

<p>That’s pretty weak. Maybe is certainly a stretch. She said nothing about clearing the area for emergency vehicles. The people were not in the street, but up on a grass patch. Her taking their property from them would not facilitate the arrival of emergency vehicles, just enrich her.</p>

<p>Mr. Sudduth wrote:</p>

<p>“Give people at work a break. I hate it when I am out in public get ready to take a shot and because I have a big unusual camera people linger in my shot because they think they are going to get famous. If someone is working get out of their way. “</p>

<p>I get it. With someone as important as you around, people should be scurrying to do your bidding. They shouldn’t even have to wait for you to snap your fingers, but anticipate your every need. Imagine their thinking that they’re in a public place and they have as much a right to be there as someone as important as yourself. I can’t believe the temerity they showed you.</p>

<p>What I do not get is the difference between your other thoughtful posts and this comment. This one seems out of character for you.</p>

<p>Also, I didn’t notice anybody working where the people were where they could get in someone’s way. Did you? The security guard was not working until she tried to strong-arm personal property from others.</p>

<p>Gentlepersons…</p>

<p>I’m sure my attitude seems unreasonable to many of you. Perhaps if you had lived my life in my time, you would at least see the reason that I often take the side of someone who is being bullied by a puke in a make-believe uniform. In the 1930s, the brown shirts, when first formed, had uniforms but no legal authority. They certainly looked official so people tended to be intimidated by them. There were also nice well-meaning people who didn’t want to cause a fuss, cause a scene, or seem unreasonable themselves. It was a fast and very slippery slope that led to over six million Jews and many others going to the gas. Otherwise good Aryan families who cooperated or were just too yellow to stand up for their neighbor were bombed out of their houses, starved, and had their possessions confiscated. That’s what I call unreasonable.</p>

<p>If you people consider not being intimidated by a non-official uniformed bully as unreasonable, so be it, and may you live with the consequences, because you will. History tends to repeat itself. </p>

<p>A.T. Burke</p>

"The rubberneckers were congregating next to and on a private road. If the security guard doesn't break up the crowd more legions of the curious are going to congregate. So you have an accident and EMS, police and fire might need to park where this crowd is. You also have mall traffic on the road where these people are loitering. And you have one underpaid security guard with no back up to manage this growing clusterf--k. Give people at work a break."

 

Half a dozen people were standing next to rail in a grassy margin, not blocking traffic or interfering with (nonexistent) emergency operations for a vehicle that was hundreds of meters away. No one was in the road until the mall guard assaulted a woman. During the entire course of the video, I heard a single motorcycle passing by. Your characterization that a growing, unruly mob was creating a hazard is almost as overblown as the mall guard's actions.

<p>How a tempest in a teacup can escalate to this level of forum discussion might be more worthy of examination; all because some iPhone tottin' "citizen journalist" caught something "interesting" on video. </p>

A. T. - I'm not saying she didn't do anything wrong, because clearly she did, I'm just looking for why she was there, caring

about whether the people were videoing the accident, in the first place.

<p>Look at it this way Michael. Suppose there had been no camera present (impossible in today's world, but suppose). This guard generated astoundingly bad judgement. Maybe she would have gone on to badly injure or kill someone by using that same judgement and the exposure of her lack of skill at this job prevented that from happening.</p>

<p>It's not just that a camera caused her to get in trouble. It's that a camera exposed something that needed exposing. In this case it's sad when someone gets fired in the name of political correctness, or because the employer is afraid of potential legal consequences, but in this case clearly that firing is richly deserved. The guard should be happy to have avoided a criminal record. She's probably gone on to embark on an exciting career in the food services industry.</p>

"Clearly there is a lack of training involved here"

 

What evidence is there that makes this 'clear"?. It is standard procedure for security staff to be trained due to liability and insurance issues. Basic training typically includes avoiding angry confrontation.

 

Indeed, cases of liability for security guard conduct frequently arises from the staff failing to follow procedures and training. Considering the person's irrational behavior, the scenario easily can fit in that category.

"His response was to restrain the woman in the helmet, only to have the guard go for the woman again. I'm surprised the people with her let that happen. He committed assault and battery."

 

Defending others in such a situation is an affirmative defense.The guy drove up seeing a security guard getting beat up and the people were just standing around doing nothing except video recording it.To someone pulling up to such a scene, their claims of who started it are not relible. He was obviously trying to break up a fight without throwing punches or anything like that. This is about the weakest example of assault and battery anybody could come up with.

 

"the brown shirts, when first formed, had uniforms but no legal authority... ...a fast and very slippery slope that led to over six million Jews and many others going to the gas... ...Aryan families who cooperated or were just too yellow to stand up for their neighbor were bombed out of their houses, starved, and had their possessions confiscated... ...History tends to repeat itself."

 

Good grief. This is just some hot heads acting like idiots. Not the second coming of the Nazis to a mall near you.

<blockquote>

<p>"Clearly there is a lack of training involved here"<br /> What evidence is there that makes this 'clear"?. It is standard procedure for security staff to be trained due to liability and insurance issues. Basic training typically includes avoiding angry confrontation.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Clearly she was unable to act upon her training - if indeed such training was given. Clearly the training was insufficient to prepare her to deal with real life situations. Clearly the aforesaid training was not adequate, or sufficiently tested, to teach her to behave in any semblance of an appropriate manner. Clearly her lack of any common sense or discretion, her overreaction and confused concepts of her duties and the law reflect on the quality of training she received.</p>

<p>I'm really glad we cleared that up.</p>

>>>"Clearly the aforesaid training was not adequate... ...Clearly her lack of any common sense or discretion, her overreaction and confused concepts of her duties and the law reflect on the quality of training she received."<<<

 

 

 

 

 

One moment, the training (for which you have no idea of what it was or how much it occured) was at fault. The next its the guard lacking any common sense or discretion which exists despite any training. The next moment its training procedures automatically cures someone who has no common sense. This makes no sense.

 

 

 

 

 

We simply have no idea how much training the guard had, how effective it would be with her, what her past conduct was ect. IOW, we are not qualified to say whether she had adequate training or not.much less whether it was "clearly" so.

<p>LOL! Apparently we didn't clear that up! I would have thought that any training worth it's salt would have included some form of assessment of the candidates ability to learn and their temperament or aptitude level. Clearly the lack of that would make the training inadequate - maybe not? Who could know?</p>

<p>But you're right - we have no idea about anything for sure so we shouldn't assume anything. Maybe she had excellent training, was the number one student and simply chose to ignore every part of it on this very troubling day. Maybe she was in fact an alien and really wanted to steal our camera technology. Who could ever know? The use of the word 'clearly' was clearly a gross infraction of all that is sacred and I'm eternally grateful that this very important aspect of the story has been fully addressed.</p>

<p>Mr. Burke, the man who broke up the brawl put his own safety at risk to create peace. I call that heroism, not idiocy. The other bystanders apparently did not want the brawl broken up, because it was good entertainment. (The woman apparently recording the video even commented earlier that the conflagration was amusing.) I admire and respect people who try to do the right thing, even if they might do it clumsily.</p>

<p>I will give the crowd credit for only one thing: They stood their ground. Prohibiting photography is wrong, even if it is sometimes legal. Sometimes our laws are wrong. Sometimes policies are wrong. Whether law or policy, I also respect people who are willing to engage in civil disobedience. There should be more of it, IMO, in the face of laws and/or policies that defy common sense and good reason.</p>

<p>However, these people lost my respect as soon as the brawl started. Common sense tells us that throwing a person to the ground, hitting her in the face, and kicking her in the head are disproportionate and UNNECESSARY responses to being held or shoved by that person. Their response and their mob mentality was wholly unjustified, no matter how much of a fascist idiot the guard might have been. The correct response to the guard's threats and shoving was to dial 911 to report an out-of-control rent-a-cop. How many cell phones did they have?</p>

<p>I think I probably can understand your strong reaction to this situation. Perhaps I would react the same way in light of your apparent experiences. However, it is said that two wrongs do not make a right. It is our duty to stand up for what is right and even to recognize that sometimes both sides can be in the wrong. I don't think I would be the guy in the orange shirt, because I'm not brave/big/strong enough to insert myself into the middle of a fight. However, I would have been the gal on the phone with 911, and I would have tried to talk/negotiate the two women apart.</p>

<p>And FAIW, I agree the guard was guilty of assault, but I think the helmeted woman was also guilty, as was the crowd that stood around and watched, and ESPECIALLY the woman (with the cell phone?) who told the man not to break up the fight. She's guilty too, maybe not in the eyes of the law, but certainly in my eyes.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Mr. Sudduth wrote:<br /> “Give people at work a break. I hate it when I am out in public get ready to take a shot and because I have a big unusual camera people linger in my shot because they think they are going to get famous. If someone is working get out of their way. “<br /> I get it. With someone as important as you around, people should be scurrying to do your bidding. They shouldn’t even have to wait for you to snap your fingers, but anticipate your every need. Imagine their thinking that they’re in a public place and they have as much a right to be there as someone as important as yourself. I can’t believe the temerity they showed you.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The scenario that occurred with me was not as you described. I had my camera up and was adjusting the focus when the person wandered into my shot and started posing. I didn't say anything to the person. I just quietly waited... and waited... and waited. Another photographer was with me and we had a chat about how petty the person was to hang around posing just because they thought they were going to be in some awesome or important photograph. I was shooting in a public place and people wandered in and out of my shot periodically. It wasn't a problem. I just paused and let them go about their business. But this person wanted to be famous.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>What I do not get is the difference between your other thoughtful posts and this comment. This one seems out of character for you.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I've been in multiple situations where I've had to rush in and save someone's life. When you are young and inexperienced in that position the last thing you need is a crowd of tourists. When an emergency situation occurs securing the scene and crowd control were two of the first things stressed to me. I don't agree with how the security guard handled the situation. If I were in her position (which I never would be) I would have politely informed the people of mall rules and asked them to please move along with their business. If they refused I would have told them I will be calling the police. But the thing is you can't control other people. A situation like this would never happen with me. If anyone starts raising their voice in public I put as much distance between them and me.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Jeff, I think people are generally pretty cooperative if you don't act like a Nazi storm trooper.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Nazi storm troopers got plenty of cooperation from what I recall from history class. I always give way to crazy. The problem is when you have two crazies. Again this wouldn't have been a problem for me because someone showing signs of a mental breakdown is my signal to leave the premises.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Half a dozen people were standing next to rail in a grassy margin, not blocking traffic or interfering with (nonexistent) emergency operations for a vehicle that was hundreds of meters away.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That is the difference between tourists and emergency workers. When you are training to save lives you learn to foresee the 100 different ways the situation is going to blow up in your face. When you are a tourist you are trained to exist in blissful world. I can honestly say that based on the video I do not have a total assessment of the situation. I can also say you don't have a total assessment of the situation either. To just sign off and say what that gathering crowd was doing was totally benign and ideal is going a bit far. I don't agree with how the guard handled the situation. But that doesn't mean someone (the police) shouldn't have moved that crowd away.</p>

<p>This is a situation where there is plenty of blame to go around. My only advice to photographers is to stay safe. If you are on private property follow the rules. If you encounter a crazy person back off.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>I will give the crowd credit for only one thing: <strong>They stood their ground</strong>.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>"Standing your ground" on someone else's private property is anarchy.</p>

"I will give the crowd credit for only one thing: They stood their ground. Prohibiting photography is wrong,

even if it is sometimes legal. Sometimes our laws are wrong. Sometimes policies are wrong. Whether law

or policy, I also respect people who are willing to engage in civil disobedience."

 

We might dislike a property owner banning some activity on their property but, I think its fairly extreme to

support the notion that guests can just do whatever they want. I'm confident, if I came to your property and

violated your rules, you wouldn't be applauding the "civil disobedience".

<p>The guard clearly performed below any reasonably required standard. If the behaviour was created by lack of knowledge or briefing, thats a training issue. If its caused by a bad attitude in my experience thats much harder to fix and the reality is that some people are in the wrong job and need to go. Having watched the linked video a couple of times for me she's absolutely in the wrong job, has absolutely no instinct for whats right, and what she can make happen and needs to go. The fact that owners have the right to ban photography on their sites does not excuse that behaviour.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>How a tempest in a teacup can escalate to this level of forum discussion might be more worthy of examination; all because some iPhone tottin' "citizen journalist" caught something "interesting" on video.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Michael you are being thrown off by distractors. Even if there was no video, no altercation, and no accident this would still be a matter of debate. The altercation, video, accident, location next to the road are all distractors. The bottom line is the mall premises are private property. And the owners of that private property agree to let you stay on their property as long as you follow the rules. There are two types of photographers on this forum. One type comes up with a vision in their head of how they want the world to work and then they expect the world to conform to that vision and another type familiarizes themselves with the laws (even the ones they don't like) and follows them. Every time someone posts a situation where a photographer makes up new "rights" for themselves to get a shot there will be this kind of controversy. And yes there have been tons of posts about photographing in malls. And those threads all go exactly the same way this one went... Always the two camps.</p>

"I'm eternally grateful that this very important aspect of the story has been fully addressed."

 

You found it important enough to accuse the employer as obviously engaging in poor conduct. Its seems just as, if not more, reasonable to point out that we don't have enough information to know whether the accusation is true or not.

 

David Henderson wrote a very well reasoned and much more fair comment.

<p>The problem is privately owned space that looks like public space, a mall looks like 'town', but it isn't, and malls are policed with low budget private 'police' forces. The idea of citizenship is degraded where your right to be in a space is a right granted by a private property owner instead of an innate right. In a town, you have a right to be there. In a mall, it's get your stuff and get out.</p>

<p>The problem is people who believe that their property is theirs and that my property is theirs, too. Sucks to not be able to use something someone else owns whenever you want.</p>

<p>Yours, mine, and ours.</p>

<p>A mall may be privately owned, but it is a public space. This creates a few serious legal dilemmas that courts are only now starting to address, and not necessarily in the right way when they do. But courts are starting to rule that, for example, you don't lose your rights to free speech just because you're in a privately-owned public space. I don't think there's any rulings on photography yet, and who knows where that will go when they are. But the standard argument "the mall owners can make and enforce any rule they want" is simply not true anymore. A mall is the new 'public square'. This is going to create a nightmare of ridiculous jurisprudence in the USA.</p>

<p>Thanks Jody, that's all good to know.</p>

<p>That's actually not really a new thing. There are Supreme Court cases going back decades holding that proprietors of private spaces must respect 1st Amendment rights when the private space is functionally the same as something that's normally a public space, so that a person could mistake it for a public space, but the owners have much more authority to restrict speech.</p>

<p>For example, Marsh v. Alabama, 1946 - in a "company town" (just like a town, but it's owned by a company) the owners couldn't kick out religious evangelists who wanted to distribute literature on the sidewalks. But in Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, 1980, the court held that the <em>federal</em> constitution did not protect the rights of individuals to conduct political petitions in a shopping mall, but a <em>state</em> constitution may have a broader free speech right than the federal one and in that case the California constitution protected the activity (because the state court had ruled that it did, and the federal court defers to the state court's interpretation of the state constitution).</p>

<p>So the question "How many of your constitutional rights can you exercise against a shopping mall owner?" will have a different answer in each state and it will depend on what you're doing, how the owner is restricting you and how the state's courts have interpreted the state constitution, and what state law would let them keep you out (probably a trespassing law). For example, even in CA store owners have gotten away with having restrictions like "no pamphleting on the busiest 10% of shopping days" even though they're not allowed to have a "no pamphleting any day" rule.</p>

<p>I have no idea whether a shopping mall can keep you from shooting a video outside on its grounds in Ohio, or if they have a rule like California's, whether trying to remove a crowd at a specific time when there's likely going to be a need to have emergency vehicles coming through would be an allowable exception. Some research on the state law would be needed to say whether the mall is allowed to kick those people out.</p>