Ive gotten many emails and responses on this and I appreciate everyone’s input. Perhaps the images I posted earlier weren’t exactly clear, so I decided to post this and give a little more information:
The place were I had stopped to take a picture was on a public walkway, which was used over a dozen times by pedestrians and cars while the guy was writing the ticket. The security officer never saw me go beyond these boundaries, (which was public and available to everyone). When I pointed this out to him, he said that by law, he can give a ticket to anyone who “Enters, occupies, or remains on the tracks” at ANY time, even if there is no train in sight, at his sole discretion. He also went on to say he could give a ticket to every single person who enters this crossway if he so chose, and because I had stopped there with my camera (long after the last train had passed) I was getting a ticket. To me this isnt reasonable.
The question for me isn’t about the $70, it isnt even about him being right or wrong, its about principle. Im still very inclined to let it go just because I have better things to do, however this officer was clearly incompetent for a number of reasons:
1. The date and time of the ticket are wrong (My Exif Data were correct).
2. He gave me a ticket for stopping in a public access way, while he didn’t give it to others. This shows high subjectivity. This particular law says that anyone who “enters, occupies or remains on the tracks” is in violation, but he fails to consider its a public cross walk.
3. He has no evidence I ever endangered myself or others (aside from the picture I posted, which he hasn’t seen).
4. He let the other photographer go…mistakenly, again, incompetent.
5. He said that if I didn’t hand over my ID, there would be an additional ticket- there is no such law, which tells me he doesn’t understand it.
“So your honor, if this complaint is based entirely on this man’s credibility, how is it possible for this complaint to be valid when I have shown you evidence he is not?”
Michael, I’ve been in this spot and as you can see you’ve already spent more time than it’s worth. Think of how many good positive things you could have "thunk up" instead of thinking of this chooch. You know he was wrong. You’ve already spent more time than it’s worth. The more you reason and justify the incident, the more it takes ownership of you. Move on. You are bigger than this. Again, I’m just saying…