Donald Trump's Mug Shot and Booking

Politics & Elections
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That damned photo is all over the place this morning. It’s at the top of news websites and the front pages of newspapers. It takes up the entire front page of the New York Post, but it’s still there, less obvious, on the front page of the Boston Globe.

People are calling it “iconic” and “Trump’s official (or unofficial) presidential portrait”
Trump himself is already fundraising off it and selling T-shirts.

It’s clearly posed, and Trump decided on the posing. There’s too much light on that mop of hair and the face is thrust forward, not fully lit. He’s at an angle that makes his face (and therefore himself) look leaner. He glares out from under those eyebrows with what people are calling a “:Kubrick stare”. He looks tough and mean and threatening.

Mugshots aren’t supposed to look tough and mean and threatening. They’re supposed to be an aid to identification. This photo doesn’t look like most photos of Trump. In most of them, he definitely looks plumper. He doesn’t look as threatening. As a piece of identification, this image is not wholly successful.

Which brings up a question – doesn’t the photographer have control and final say over the image? I suspect that one big reason mug shots so rarely show smiling faces isn’t because the accused is awed or shocked by their status, but because the photographer told them to “wipe that smile off their face”. I don’t know it, but it seems likely. Although a couple of the people in this crop of indictments did smile.

But surely the photographer didn’t have to accept this photo of Trump. Unless he/she was a fan, or was star-struck, they could’ve told him to stop mugging for the camera and re-shot it. They didn’t have to hand Trump a fundraising opportunity that he actually liked. So why did they do it? Was this the only photo taken? I haven’t been able to find out from any of the stories.

But this looks too much like a case of the prisoner running the jail.

Which brings up another thing – stories give the impression that Trump’s reported height and weight are the ones HE gave. Don’t they actually measure the height and weigh the arrestee? Those old front-and-side mugshots used to have a height scale on the wall, something all of these lack. Do they always take the arrestee’s own word for how tall they are and how much they weigh.

I have to admit that I was looking forward to a little “rubbing it in” as Trump was handled in a way not to his liking by the criminal justice system, but my objections go beyond that – they seem to have given him too much control and latitude in this, and accuracy has suffered.

2

This seems strange to me too. Where is the height measurement on the wall behind these mooks. The photographer couldn’t tell him to lean back so it’s a normal photo?

Shit, I had my passport photo taken and was told how to stand and not to smile by a guy at Walgreens.

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On the other thread about this, a poster who was also a police officer said that they don’t really have scales at the stations and they just ask the person being booked for their height and weight.

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The purpose of a mug shot is so the authorities have a way to find the person if they skip out on their commitment to return to court, by sharing the photo with others. Since Trump is one of the most recognized and photographed people in the country, they’d have no trouble in requesting help finding him, if need be. That’s why no mug shot was taken for his prior indictments. In GA, evidently, they follow the rules, to the letter.

But yeah, I bet he asked the photographer to re-shoot it until there was one he liked. Or maybe he gave them the photo. It definitely does not look the same style as the others.

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I don’t think the style of mugshot would have made much difference either way. Unless I guess, he was in tears (like so many big, strong men who meet him).
He was always going to be able to grift off it.

More annoying for me was the grandiose motorcade, and closing the roads. But that would be a hijack here.

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Gonna start a thread about that nonsense.

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Can he do that? The photograph isn’t his property.

What’s the betting he’ll get a cease and desist letter, followed by claims that his free speech is being restricted.

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It’s been released to the public, so doesn’t that make it public domain? I think he looks like a wannabe tough guy, and rather pathetic. Rather like a 3-year-old child pouting about having his photo taken.

As did a NYT article, but they went on to explain that it’s iconic because it’s the photo that will define this president. A mug shot from a prison. In the history books. For all time.

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it was reported on cnn that at first his lawyers tried for no mugshot. they were told no, then the discussion turned to how he should look in the shot. according to reporting he was going with “defiant”.

the “no surrender” thing is very humourous. as that is exactly what he did last night. i would hammer on that for quite some time as an opponent. he has surrendered 4 times now.

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Yep. They’re just helping him spread his meme. I would’ve preferred if his mug shot enshrined him as more of a “Deer in the Headlights” than as a Mean Tough Campaignin’ Machine.

You don’t see the problem with Trump getting away with defining the look of his mug shot. Neither does Rachel Maddow, who thinks it’s more important that Trump WAS mug-shotted, and doesn’t care how it looks.

But to me this is part of the problem. This damned photo is going to be a rallying call and a symbol of Trump in a way that a standard blank-faced mug shot would never be. This is the “Che Guevara in a Beret” of Trump pictures. Attractive to his worshippers.

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I mean, honestly, wouldn’t these have been better?

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It would’ve been nice to have the traditional front and side view up against a height scale. But this works, plus it shows him looking like a cornered rat.

It’s not as if he’s about to become a fugitive and they need the mug shot to release to authorities putting out APBs.

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But instead, we get this:

Hard to see this as more appealing with any of the images from my last post.

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Man, I think it’s a horrible picture of him. He looks defiant, yes, but he also looks like a cornered animal. He’s off center (ain’t THAT the truth) and looks like hell. It does seem rehearsed, but I have no idea what he was going for. He looks like he was going for tough, but I think he looks scared and certainly angry. I don’t know how anyone would want to fundraise on it, but as we all know, he has no taste.

I think his sunken cheeks are an indication that he may have lost some weight from stress. Certainly not down to 215, but still.

15

Sorry about the hijack but I believe, contrary to everything that I saw on CNN (eg Trump will experience a real prison for the first time, with the ugly sights and smells etc and what an eye-opener for him blah blah blah), I don’t think that there’s a damn thing about this that didn’t/doesn’t/won’t give him special, favourable treatment.

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I was hoping this one would be found to be faked and the real mugshot was a different photo, as yet unreleased.

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Every picture I’ve had taken for drivers license/passport/etc looks pretty similar. My trick is to get pretty drunk, smoke a few bowls, then get a ride to the photo place, mussing my hair on the way.

In one case the woman taking DL pics offered me a comb, but I declined.

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perhaps he should have consulted nick nolte for mugshot tips.

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His followers won’t think he looks scared. They’ll think he looks tough and defiant, and not at all like a cornered animal. You may not think so, but he’ll clean up on this image with fundraising. They’ll sell mugs, T-shirts, flags, and Og knows what else.

And they just handed him this opportunity, instead of insisting on a proper mug shot.

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LSLguy’s post in another trhread is appropriate: