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10/07/2005 02:04:50 PM · #1 |
As most of us know since 9-11 photographers have been harrassed by "Rent-A-Cops" as well as local police for taking photos of bridges, landmarks and parks. Today they have moved on to Mommys...ROFL
I just got back from the mall with my two boys, one 9 years old and the other one is 4 months old with oxygen and an apnea monitor. Some little old lady saw the stroller and the oxygen tank and called mall security that a potential terrorist was in the mall and told them she saw me going into Ritz Camera pushing an oversized blue stroller but she didn't see any baby and that some kind of gas cylinder was under the stroller...duh! she was obviously way to far away to see a premature infant on oxygen and a monitor. But she made the report to security based on the reports in NYC about potential bombers using a large bag such as a briefcase or back pack or a stroller or carriage.
Mall security stopped us as we were leaving Ritz Camera and asked to search the stroller...I've got a baby on oxygen and of course that maternal instinct took over and I was like a lioness about to pounce. I told the security gaurd he could not touch the baby that it was a preemie with a developing immune system but that I would remove him from the stroller then he could move things around but only after he used the hand sanitizer I had with me...lol...I don't know where his fingers last were and I wasn't going to let him load up the carseat or stroller with germs.
You could tell instantly the officer was only following up on a report and was very embrassed that he didn't look closer before even approaching me. He lifted the carseat out of the stroller and looked in the basket asked me what the tank and monitor were for and then told me how he was only following a report of an elderly lady about a stroller with a tank and something ticking in the stroller and asked me if I would mind following him up to the mall office so he could give the baby something.
He gave the baby a mall baby bib and then my 9 year old got an yo-yo and then his boss gave me a $10 mall gift certificate and appologized profusely for the harassment.
I'm still chuckling over how some old lady would think a terrorist would waste their time in Central Pennsylvania in a mall that serves a city of less than 75,000. It's amazing how some people are stuck in their own little worlds and can't see the difference between little city USA and NYC.
Message edited by author 2005-10-07 14:05:47. |
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10/07/2005 02:08:19 PM · #2 |
thats crazy. people are so paranoid... it's like they are inviting trouble or something. people need to loosen up.
i'm glad the mall followed up nicely with you though... i would be bothered to read if they were jerks.
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10/07/2005 02:08:58 PM · #3 |
Originally posted by OneSweetSin:
I'm still chuckling over how some old lady would think a terrorist would waste their time in Central Pennsylvania in a mall that serves a city of less than 75,000. It's amazing how some people are stuck in their own little worlds and can't see the difference between little city USA and NYC. |
I've always thought that if "the terrorists" could make people live in fear whether they were in smalltown, USA or in NYC they would realize true success.
Cute story, though! |
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10/07/2005 02:23:17 PM · #4 |
| Ask the manager if you can have a copy of the official incident report -- you can buy your own frame with the gift certificate. |
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10/07/2005 04:36:23 PM · #5 |
A funny incident with a charming ending, to be sure, but let's recognize that the lady who made the report was probably responding to a genuine sense of fear (however misguided) and that she was sincerely afraid, and chose to contact an authority. Probably not a crackpot, just a scared citizen trying to do the right thing.
You never know, central Pennslyvania could be next, right after WTC, Pentegon, London Subway, etc.
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10/07/2005 04:44:42 PM · #6 |
i'm not allowed to give blood because i am an case pending "alien".
Because you know, terrorism is carried by red blood cells and you wouldnt want to infect the nation ;)
Glad the guard didnt manhandle your baby though onesweetsin. |
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10/07/2005 04:49:31 PM · #7 |
Hey at least you got something from those harrasments. Photographers don't get anything :(
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