One time nearly pounded the tar out of someone.
One of my biggest pet peeves in life is being accused of something I have not done. I used shoot a lot from the gazebo at one of the handful of city parks here in town.
Some of the stuff I have shot from that spot, It's nothing spectacular but just to demonstrate the shots I take there.
the park
the kids
A penguin attempt
Now that said, I was approached by some one and his friend wile I was turning in film the other day. Right there in the store he tells me,
You have been taking pictures of my house and that's illegal. You where on the gazebo hiding in the bushes taking pictures of my house, I seen you. I have two witnesses and one is a cop, you do it again you are goin to jail
...Um Well, No I am not goin to jail, this much I know, But it irks me that he thinks this is going to fly. I have not been photographing his house, I have no reason to, even if I did I would not hide. The fact of the matter is this stupid drunk thinks he is going to have me arrested for illegally photographing his place of residence from a city park, what the hell. He has got to be hiding something, but truthfully I don't give a rats ass what.
Well My response to him was a simple
lol what ever, do what you will
then I personally went down to the police department and told them that he may come calling at some point in the near future.
I wanted to beat him to within an inch of his life but... I think I'll wait untill the police tell him there is nothing they can or will do about it.
A second time I had the police called on me for having a camera the size of New Jersey in a public park where lots of little girls where playing in their sunday best.
As I have stated I am a child care provider and when the two kids I supervise asked to go to the park I saw no reason not to (they need the exercise). Upon arriving at the park we find there is a church gathering being held in the park. K it's a public park right across from the church, what ever. There where aproximately a dozen kids there (not including the two I brought) the majority of witch female. The two I had began to play as they had planned, I sat down and began changing the lens on my camera swapping the 400mm for an 85mm. Normally I would stand under the little gazeabo at the top of the hill but upon my arrival it was full of kids so I stayed out.
It did not take long for the adults males of the church group to begin posturing between myself and the kids, I kindly asked what was going on down there (glancing across the park), He told me and invited me to feel free to come down and have a bite to eat. This I respectfully declined, To put it bluntly I want nothing to do with their beliefs, I just don't buy into the whole "Church" thing. He then proceeded back down to the rest of the gathering and took the kids with him. After about five minuets or so a second man approched me, He offered me a CD....well at this point I figured if they're offering bribes of food and then now a compact disk, it's time to get the hell out of dodge...they are not going to be comfortable untill I either leave or join them. So I Change my glass again, (I can't put the 400 in the brief case, it won't fit.) and coax the two I brought to go to another park. They agreed quickley, it seems they don't like large gatherings either.
I got fifteen feet from where I was sitting when I saw the police cruser come around the corner behind me....I knew full well what he was there for. When he pulled up beside me I looked at him and kinda chuckled and shook my head and told the kids to hold up because he was going to want to speak to me.
We've got some smart cops around here, I could tell just by the look on his face he did not want to talk to me but a job is a job and he had to. He came around the front of the car and I said "Your are here to talk to me arntchya" He sais "Yeah we got a call" I told him I was not suprised. That one cought him off guard and he asked if I saw them call, I said "no....I am a photographer and a child care provider, In this day and age photographers get this a bit and as a child care provider I am also in the position where I have to assume the same thing when I see it. I know exactly what what they are thinking and I understand it" After that he took down the standard information Name, address, drivers licence yada yada.
After he had what he needed to do done he asked about the capibility of the lens I had on the camera and I gave him a what I feel was a perfect description

about idealy framing a building a quarter mile away, and then we headed our seperate ways.
The only part about the whole thing that sucked was the fact it sucked up so much time I had to take the kids home instead of the other park they wanted to go to, and on top of that I had to explain to them why the police wanted to talk to me. Trying to explain this concept to children is difficult because I can't exactly tell them that people think I am a sexual preditor, thankfully their mother was nice enough to help out and kid friendly it as the "Stranger Theroy" and it was up to me from there to explain how it effects Photographers and picture taking.