The NYPD have nothing better to do than harass a photographer taking photographs of this trashed shopping cart. It's been sitting on this grassy patch on East 12th Street in Brooklyn for the past 4 days. It's filled with materials probably discarded by one of the disreputable and fly by night building contractors that work in my neighborhood. Office Sukhu was attempting to intimidate me today, implying that I was responsible for dumping this cart here. What right have the cops to ask me questions as to why I'm photographing anything that is on a public street? They have no right to harass me, ask for ID or make other assumptions about my character. Office Sukhu even questioned whether I belonged here in New York City. "You don't sound like you live here in New York" he said. I told him I was doing my art and he used that statement to imply that I was the one who dumped these materials. He and FOUR other officers from the 61st Precinct surrounded me and threatened me with a summons. The kind of cavalier attitude and leading conversation I suffered under their scrutiny has reinforced my negative opinion of the NYPD. There is no "Courtesy, Professionalism and Respect" coming from the NYPD anymore. I doubt there ever has been any but now even more so since Bloomberg declared the NYPD to be his "Army".
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