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greg trumper

4 years ago

I am a photographer from the KW region and while I...

I am a photographer from the KW region and while I have generally had positive experiences with this company in the past. There have been two altercations where their guards have over-stepped their boundaries and tried to violate my rights.
Yesterday, while walking down the public sidewalk on Columbia St. (heading towards the Columbia/Weber intersection) a Barber-Collins security guard who was parked in the adjacent parking lot, started yelling at me for taking pictures of the parking lot. Something which is not illegal, despite the parking lot being located on private property. Not only was there no signage to indicate that the parking lot was private property, but there is also absolutely NOTHING illegal about photographing private property from a PUBLIC vantage point (in this case the sidewalk I was walking on). This is something I learned in college by professional photographers and journalists. As well as easily found in a 10 second Google Search.
Furthermore, the security guard appeared to be having a personal conversation with a friend at the time of the incident, the person he was speaking to had drove right through the entrance (onto the same private parking lot) and parked their car alongside the security guard. NOW I can't be certain that this was a personal conversation, however the visitor was not driving a Barber-Collins security vehicle and therefor led me to believe it was simply a friend of the security guard who wanted to talk to him.

I would like this company to accept responsibility for this security guards actions at attempting to boss me around when I was not doing anything illegal or harmful to the property. To me, it seemed like a complete blatant abuse of power by a security guard who is either uneducated and unaware of the laws they're suppose to be upholding; or simply bored of guarding an uneventful parking lot, and was just looking for an excuse to flash the badge and yell at someone minding their own god damn business.
Next time something like this happens I will not hesitate to call Police Non-Emergency and involve properly educated law enforcement.

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