A la poubelle

More details are forthcoming, but... this afternoon I was grabbed, shoved and manhandled by a store security agent after I took a picture of him harassing an older man - at the time I took the picture, I didn't know he was store security; I thought it was a repeat of the event on the tram I recounted here two or three weeks ago, when I described a younger guy yelling at an older man and eventually kicking him in the head until he was restrained. I called the police as I followed the security agent into the store - I snatched my camera back and then the security guy pushed me, grabbed my arms and shoulders and lunged at me, trying to get the camera back. Another security agent came and they pushed me against a clothes rack, and restrained me from moving.

I forcefully refused, again and again, their demands to "come to the back with us." I waited and waited for the police - and when three plainclothes cops came, they grilled me, even though I said, "c'est moi qui a vous appele" - I'm the one who called you! They took my camera and deleted the picture in question. This was poorly explained to me, but the store manager said that something called "liberte individuel" prohibited me from taking pictures of the store security... even outside the store... even when they were possibly committing a crime.

I would've been in huge trouble if I hadn't been able to convince the policemen that my driver's license was my national identity card - I showed them a photocopy of my passport and birth certificate, and one cop said, "a la poubelle" - "to the trash." I whipped out my license and showed it to him, explaining that it was an identity card. He seemed to be placated, and recorded my name, DOB, and address in France. Oh no, I'm in the (thankfully, horribly organized) system! The police accused me of helping a thief get away and I bit my tongue (I found out later, according to Loic, that 'aiding and abetting' offenses really don't exist in French law). They repeated it, and I had to speak - "Pourquoi nous etions plus importants que le voleur?" - Why were we more important than the thief? (I was with a friend, Santiago.) That seemed to especially aggravate them and as they moved in on me the situation detiorated from "uncomfortably surrounded" to "nauseatingly encircled." As the three policemen, two store security agents and two store managers chattered away in rapid-fire French... I said I didn't understand. They slowed down, and I said nothing, assumed a blank stare and waited until they all left, one by one, until I was standing alone, trembling inside, astonished at the events of the past hour.

Loic helped me recover the picture that started the whole fiasco, along with Santiago's movies - unfortunately they're rather shaky and unclear; you can see me calling the police and walking after the security agent who had just stolen my camera in the first video, and hear Santiago swearing in Spanish under his breath in the second, as the camera pans past me edged up against the clothes rack, confined by the security agents and police.

I should've... been farther away when I took the initial picture, had the camera strap around my wrist, grabbed the camera back in the street and ran, or escaped once I had my camera in the Monoprix. I don't know how I could've presented my case any differently to the police that would have made them more receptive or sympathetic. Understandably, they were on edge because of the strike, but -- a picture taken of a store security agent? In the street? I didn't know that ranked so high on the priority list - or the "awful crimes against society" list.

A rousing game of korfball afterwards helped ease some of the remaining tensions, but my adrenaline is still going at 2:40am. I suppose, on the bright side: I wasn't arrested and I have my camera intact...

I think sources close to my administration will, um, soon leak those movies and the picture.