Yup!
Many years ago (back when cameras still had film) I was out one winter night after an ice storm. As I get near home, I see a tree limb that is sagging terribly from the weight of the ice, but is absolutely glowing in the colors of traffic light just beyond it. I run home, grab my camera & tripod & go back out to get a picture of this once-in-a-lifetime photo, parking on a side street about a block away.
The road is two lanes, no shoulder or sidewalk & there is snow & ice on the grass so I start walking in the (plowed) street. When a car approaches, I get up on the grass & just stand there as I’m not wearing boots. Once it passes I get back into the street & continue to walk. Another car approaches & I do the same thing, get out of the road & stand there waiting for him to pass.
However this one slows down, then stops; it’s a uniformed cop in a marked police car. He asks me what I’m doing, to which I reply, “I’m going to take a shot.” (You shoot a picture, right?)
His voice goes up about two octaves as he reaches for his gun & says, “A what?!?!?”
At this point, the lightbulb goes off over my head realizing that the folded up tripod, on the far side of my body, in the dark, probably looks like a long gun. :smack:
I quickly spin it around to in front of him, while almost yelling, “A photo, a camera, see the camera!”
The hand comes off the gun, the voice drops back the two octaves & he states, “OK, be safe” before driving off.
And, (as Spiderman has demonstrated) think carefully about the words you respond with. :eek:
Lincolnwood is a tiny little suburb on the northern edge of Chicago. Nothing ever happens in Lincolnwood; the cops there have very little to do.
Once upon a time (1997 or so), my friends and I were out on an abandoned railroad right-of-way in Lincolnwood, filming a WWI movie for AP US History. Three pipes + electrical tape + camera tripod + firecrackers = machine gun nest prop, and a might effective one at that.
There were houses that backed up to the railroad right-of-way. We didn’t think anyone would be home, but there was someone home, and she called the cops to report “wackjobs in camo shooting guns on the train tracks.”
And so the entire Lincolnwood police department turned out with their guns drawn, for a grand shoot-out with three high school kids, a shovel, and a couple of pipes. Once they realized that 1. There were no guns, 2. There were no wackjobs (they may have been mistaken), 3. There were high school kids, 4. There was a rolling camera; they told us to stop filming (we put the camera down but kept rolling) and cited us for trespassing, fireworks, and public mischief, and told us to take our show to the forest preserve.
Sadly our documentary about how the US has turned into a police state did not sit well with the teacher, or with the principal, who was observing the day it was shown.
My friends and I were once taking a walk late at night, and a cop asked if we knew anything about the street signs that had been knocked over in the area. We didn’t, and we continued our walk…
If you’re dressed in any way that conceals your identity and doing anything perceived as different, cops will be on their alert while dealing with you, especially in response to a 911 call. I once put on a hooded jacket during summer while using a broom borrowed from a nearby restaurant to remove about a dozen wasps from the passenger compartment of my car in a public parking lot. (The wasps had been in the passenger door before I opened it.) A restaurant employee not knowing what I was doing secretly called the cops or 911, as I wore the hooded jacket while going into the restaurant and asked to borrow a broom. While I was at my car using the broom, three cops approached me with their hands at their holsters. I was instructed to drop the broom and spread my hands on my car as they inquired about what I was up to. I explained and one of the cops looked in the car and saw the last wasp still there on my rearview mirror. He said my story checked out, and they quickly left after commenting that I should see why they were contacted.