Gallery: Disability Japan 2004-12
Police Arrogance and Anthropologist Intimidation
Some of the other officers did not conceal their attitudes towards the protesters.
I like this series of shots as I caught the condescending expression of this senior officer as one of the protest support staff tried to negotiate with him to let more people come out of the rain and into the building.
The police officer sees me taking photographs of him in the second frame and in the third frame he is yelling at me to not take photographs of him.
Taking a photograph of a public servant in the execution of their job is not a crime. He had no expectation of privacy. I was not preventing him from any of his job functions. Thus, he had no grounds to forbid me from taking photographs of him. As he yelled at me, I shrugged and turned away. He did not follow.
An open society relies on an open press and academic freedom. When police officers use intimidation to try to shut down reportage of what they are doing in the course of their jobs, they are threatening the basic foundations of democracy.
