Source: Facebook/Industrial Resolution
Every once in a while someone talks about the violence in the realm of photography. We talk about the images used to ‘shoot’ photos, or ‘take’ photos, and if we’re lucky our gear can ‘fire’ 14 fps.
This incident, though, takes it to a whole new level and while many photographers carry a Canon around with them, one photographer in Pennsylvania was suspected of carrying an actual machine gun.
Turns out someone noticed a person walk into an office building with what looked like a machine gun and called 911.
According to Lancaster Online, police showed up at a central Pennsylvania office building yesterday at about 11 a.m. following the 911 call and began a floor-by-floor search of the building.
The ‘machine gun’ was finally found on the 10th floor when police in body armor spotted the photographer with her tripod.
Other than an awesome story, the unnamed photographer also got a photo with the police officers who responded to the potential threat. The photo was shared on Facebook by Industrial Resolution, the company the photographer was there to document.
Sometimes, when a charming photographer from the Reading Eagle comes to take your photo for an upcoming story, and…
Posted by Industrial Resolution on Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Despite the fact that a real machine gun costs a LOT more than a tripod and couldn’t be carried around so easily, this is one of those ‘better safe than sorry’ cases’.
“The citizen who reported this was doing what every citizen should do ALL the time — be vigilant and report suspicious activity,” said Lt. Todd Umstead of the Lancaster police department.
He added that police would “much rather respond to a call like this and determine it to be unfounded, than not get a call for something that ends up being the real thing”.
[Lancaster Online via PetaPixel]
P.S. this is not a good week for the police, earlier this week, they have mistaken a Gimbal for a Drone.
http://s64.photobucket.com/user/racerx6948/media/Camera/LongLensSetup.jpg.html
I was going to make one of these, but decided against in the contemporary climate of fear.
A jeep driver just last week was reported having a machine gun on his hood.. How about a jack. Get a grip people
Because tripods looks so much like guns !
Or . . . people could just lighten up and quit responding to the fear mongering going on right now.
“He added that police would ‘much rather respond to a call like this and determine it to be unfounded, than not get a call for something that ends up being the real thing’.”
Except that, technically, couldn’t this be considered filing a false police report? :-/
good thing she’s white. you don’t want to know what would’ve happened if they caught her carrying-a-toy-while-black
Not the first time people/cops are uninformed of camera equipment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tJ_7Q6gM4Y
It’s the stupification of America! Been going on for years now but it’s speeding up exponentially now.
Smiling idiots
Meanwhile, an open carry nutjob barely gets a notice- carrying a machine gun!
Isn’t it last week in another state a police mistaken a stabilizing rig as a drone?
Hey…it wasn’t concealed…what’s the problem?…:-D
Happened to me as wee on a traffic stop…
Always played with a tripod acting like it was a machine gun as a kid :)
This happened to me many, many years ago at Schiphol Airport, The Netherlands. However, this was loooong before 9/11. One of the clamps on my tripod had broken during flight, so one leg kept sliding out. While I was waiting for my connecting flight, staring out the big panorama window, I felt a light tap on my shoulder and a friendly ‘excuse me’.. I turned around to see two impossiply tall armed police men grinning down at me. One said: “Did you know that silhouetted against the window, your tripod looks like a rifle?”. Then they asked me if they could take a picture (with a small compact film camera) and we all had a good laugh about how utterly ridiculous anyone would have to be to think it was a rifle… Oh, I miss those days when air travel was relaxed and nice…
Almost as funny (not) as the woman who called the police because someone had a machine gun mounted on their Jeep… it was a high lift jack. I’m sorry, but I cannot have sympathy for someone who cannot tell the difference between a tripod (or high lift jack) and a machine gun – seems like a complete waste of the police time.
Imaging going on a photo walk caryin’ a Zenit photosniper…