Gregory Grice, a 16 year old railfan, was detained by police in White Plains, NY early in June. Apparently someone called the police and reported him "kneeling with a device". He was actually taking pictures of trains at a public crossing. Four? police agencies responded.
He was questioned at the scene and then taken to a MTA police department building, where he was detained and finally released. He accidentally recorded most of the ordeal and a segment can be heard below.
He was eventually charged with a variant of trespassing and he has a summons to appear in court.
The response seems extreme for a kid near the tracks!
Pixiq story
8 comments:
I'm glad he recorded what he did! I can't believe what they put him through. I can see maybe the trespassing charge cause it can be hard to tell what is railroad property sometimes. But they way they spoke to him and hand cuffed him, that was excessive!
If I was detained for all the time I spent at the tracks at that age, I'd be serving 8 concurrent life sentences right now.
Eric
Definitely excessive, Dave. I agree that he could maybe have been trespassing.. some railfans seem to think they can wander anywhere.. but this was ridiculous.
I don't know what's going on with the double postings. I removed a couple of duplicate comments.
Sorry about the double post. When I first wrote I had to enter my Google account info and it looked like it lost my comment so I wrote another. I'll have to remember that it worked.
I have only had one issue, it was in Regina at CN Warrell Yard. I was photographing the new power that was heading to Last Mountain Railroad and the CNR Police came up and gave me a $2000 fine. After some talk, I learned he is railfan too, and he ripped up the ticket. I usually ask for permission. That one time I didn't.
Good thing you had the ticket ripped up, Paul. I know you want to get "the shot" but trespassing isn't worth it!
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