I wouldn’t conflate stop and frisk as being equivalent with politely asking a question.
Frisking is a search and therefore must have “due process” fulfilled. We could debate what constitutes due process, but there’s a legal standard of some sort there.
To my knowledge, there’s no due process requirement for politely asking a question. And the example we’re talking about doesn’t fit my definition of “intrusive questioning.” I don’t know what you think was intrusive. Are we now going to prevent people from using “What’s up?” as a greeting?
Quiting from quoted article:" … the girls stood in their usual spot against the railing at the back of the boat. …
Totally engaged with the scene in front of me, I jumped when a man came up beside me and said to my daughters: “I would be remiss if I didn’t ask if you were okay.”
I don’t get it. The man was on the boat with them?
If the man really was Homeland Security, wouldn’t he have spoken directly to the adult, instead?
My uninformed speculation is that if this actually happened, the man wasn’t an agent, but was a weird, tactless racist. And he was either on someone else’s boat, or they were all on a larger, ferry type boat.
Strange story.
Totally racist, to my mind. I don’t believe anyone who actually worked for homeland security would behave in any such fashion. And, if that’s a lie, and I firmly believe it is, it’s purpose is to distract/excuse blatant racism.
The Dad should have taken a photo of the guy, then asked his name. Then for proof he’s with HS. When he don’t have it, point out you’ll be contacting them with his photo, see how they feel about it. If he hems or haws, backtracks in any way, I’d have taken out my phone and called the police.
Why, if society is okay with police officers shooting anyone that might have some kind of weapon somewhere and might possibly use it sometime, shouldn’t society be okay with officers questioning anything and everything they think might possibly be not-quite-alright?
(Yes, I realize that this takes the man’s claim to work for DHS at face value, but everything else in the story is being taken at face value, isn’t it?)
My thoughts, too. If they were victims of trafficking/child porn, wouldn’t said photo shoot be happening in seclusion? And be…pornographic? Was this guy really expecting them to say no, we’re not OK?
It happens. Many of the infamous prisoner/slave women of recent years did go out in public during the periods of their captivity. At least a couple, such as Tanya Kach, escaped (after years) because of a momentary chance to confide in or beg help from a stranger.
Mostly when I do something like you did - both my partner and I make it obvious we are a couple - maybe by talking, maybe by having me take over the cart - maybe by holding hands…
True, but I don’t know, it just seems like the chances of actually running into a situation like that are pretty minuscule. It would just be so off my radar to assume that Asian girls being photographed by a white guy are Stockholm Syndrome afflicted victims of years of abuse. It would be like, as someone mentioned upthread, asking random women if their husbands are beating them because they just might be. There’s just no evidence here that these girls were in any kind of trouble.
Also, going back to this, even if you assume the guy photographing them isn’t their father and think he’s a professional photographer, wouldn’t the other explanation be…he’s a professional photographer on a shoot? Like, is there some rule that photographers can only shoot subjects of the same race as they are?
I don’t have a problem, but my opinion seems to differ from yours. It seems to me that society is fine with police shooting anyone that they think might possibly be dangerous at some time. My cite is, oh, the last 50 years of police shootings in America and the lack of negative outcomes towards the police for them.
You and I may not be okay with it, but society in general is. If society were not okay with it, surely laws and rules and regulations to prevent it would be in place and they would be followed, but as far as I can see, that isn’t the case.
OK, let’s dial it back from stop-and-frisk a bit. How about the constant low-level suspicion that some black folks complain about being subjected to? Things like:
-women holding tighter to their purses or locking their car doors when a black man is near by
Just as the vast majority of black people are not criminals, the vast majority of men who take photos of other-raced girls in public are not predators; it’s not surprising that upstanding persons in both categories would grow agitated when faced with preemptive suspicion.
This to the max. I’ve been in situations where my credentials for being the responsible adult with various younger family members have been questioned, and yes it can be irritating especially if it’s been a trying day; however, the alternative of law enforcement or even concerned citizens ignoring the possibility of human trafficking has far worse consequences.
No, the money shots for commercial child porn happen in seclusion, but a lot of underage porn in the United States is amateur and made by people who are “fans” to put it mildly. Pedophiles can be very good at convincing themselves that their relationships to their victims are normal.
I don’t think people are suggesting that the possibility of wrong-doing should be ignored; rather, that the threshold for intervention be raised to something more than just “hey, that guy is taking pictures of those girls.”
When a “legitimate concern” is so nebulous, speculative, and supported very little factually that acting on it is substantially more likely to inflict grief on an innocent person than provide relief to a victim, then it’s prudent to reassess the decision to act on that concern.
“I would be remiss if I didn’t ask if you were okay.”
Okay, worse case scenario, the girls are being held there against their will and were not okay. Does this concerned stranger really think the girls would make this obvious to him while the kidnapper is standing right there? If they felt that empowered to speak up, they would likely have fled already. So what else could he have done? Gee, I dunno, why not make small talk with the photographer and assess the suspiciousness of his behavior directly? The guy didn’t do this probably because it would mean giving him some benefit of the doubt and treating him like he wasn’t doing anything wrong. A lot of people find this difficult to do when they’ve jumped to a certain conclusion, but if they don’t want to be guilty of offending someone, it’s the right thing to do.
I’m inclined to think the guy intruded with his question, not because he thought the girls were really at risk, but because the thought of not acting on the mere possibility made him think he’d be kicking himself later that night with guilt. Which is a selfish reason, no matter how well-meaning it might be.
He could have just hung about till one of the girls said, “Dad, aren’t we done yet?”
Pretty obvious, simple and most unobtrusive way to allay his misplaced fear/paranoia. THAT’s what a Homeland Security person would do first, I suspect. Or any thinking person, for that matter.