Pixiq

What? You photographed some thing with out being hassled? Miller committed the crime of photography with out being arrested. The police must be falling down.

Nice work, by the way.

“Although abandoned, the gates to the stadium were wide-open and there was no security guard present, so we pretty much got to walk around and take our photos.”

So you made a decision to ignore the law regarding illegal entry and decided it was OK for you to enter anyway.

I asked before, in the first article:

“Is climbing around the roof of an abandoned stadium legal or is it trespassing? Do you have any mixed feelings about insisting the police adhere to the law while (as it seems) you are breaking the law? ”

Pardon me for being curious, but how can you be indignant when others break the law, and you picking and choosing which laws apply to you?

Isn’t that an awful lot like what you complain the police do?

In short, this makes you seem rather hypocritical.

John,

1. I am not paid to enforce or uphold the law, so there is a little difference.

2. By entering the stadium, I did not commit a crime against any person. There was no victim.

3. If a cop would have busted us, I would have accepted a trespassing citation because technically, I was trespassing. If that cop would have taken me to jail, I would not have been happy, but I would also have to accept the charge, unlike the times I was arrested for photographing cops against their wishes.

4. I never claimed to be a saint. I sometimes exceed the speed limit, run red lights, make illegal U-turns and I’ve even been known to smoke pot – all those which are illegal offenses.

Not being caught because no cop saw you IS the same concept as a cop not being caught harassing someone because they didn’t photograph it. I will concede these vary as to degree, however.

We all have the responsibility to uphold (I didn’t say enforce) the law, whether we’re paid or not. Along with Constitutional rights, we also have responsibilities as citizens. The fact so many people fail to accept their responsibilities is one reason we have so many cops. The apparent thinking is ‘If I don’t get caught, I didn’t do anything wrong.’ As we frequently see, there are cops that fall into that mindset too.

A crime is a crime. It’s black and white, not shades of gray we get to interpret. An oft-used cliche, but true. Whether or not there’s an identifiable ‘victim’ is immaterial.

Another way to state this is ‘Leading by Example.’

If the stadium is public property, then no he wasn’t trespassing.