Re: [Leica] Busted with my M2

[Aaron Ruby <aruby@rci.rutgers.edu>]

on 12/13/00 10:28 PM, Marc James Small at msmall@roanoke.infi.net wrote:

> At 09:42 PM 12/13/2000 -0500, Aaron Ruby wrote:
>> And for those of you who are prone to testing the shutters of your cameras
>> in adverse environments, I can tell you that the M2 performs flawlessly
>> inside of D.C. jail cells ;)
> 
> Which charge was this one, Aaron?  I hope you beat it!
> 
> Marc
> 
> msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
> Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!
> 
Marc:

My wife (a journalist for Fortune and FSB) and I were picked up with 600
other folk as part of a pre-emptive arrest the day before the big IMF rally
in D.C. Unfortunately, no, we did not beat the rap, which boiled down to
'parading' without a permit. After 20hours on a bus and 10 inside, wherein
we were denied access to counsel, water, restrooms and knowledge of our
charge, we posted and forfeitted for $50. The good news is that it was
clearly an illegal arrest and we are part of a civil action against the
city. The bad news is that the city set aside money ahead of time for just
such a contingency, knowing that they were going to make several such mass
arrests, which they did. In fact, the legal aid hotline that had been set up
to help arrestees get timely attorney advice was jammed for several hours
with false calls. During that time, hundreds of arrestees were finally
allowed to use a phone were unable to get through to their attorney. When
the legal aid team finally had the phone company give a reverse listing for
the line dialing in with the bogus calls the number that came up was none
other than that of the Metro P.D. crime lab. Hooray for democracy! :(

At any rate, though they never took away my M2, they did eventually discover
it and tried to remove the film. Upon encountering the Leica loading system,
however, they were stumped, and  on pain of seeing them destroy the shutter
curtain, I willingly removed the film myself. A real shame. I had what I
think would have been some nice shots with my attached Cosina 25mm. They
also destroyed my wife's reporter's notebook. I guess after a hard day of
stomping on people's constitutional rights the last thing you need is a
bunch of pesky journalists and photographers mucking around.


Aaron