A message to the Glynn County Sheriff’s Office. We got your credentials right here.
Thousands who will be viewing this video. Dozens who will be calling your office.
Not only reminding you that photography is not a crime but informing you that Photography is Not a Crime is a legitimate news site.
But I guess you’re aware of that by now after that Who’s on First routine with Jeff “Cool Hand” Gray that will provide comedy fodder for thousands of our readers for at least until the end of the year (but will also go into our permanent compilations video we are compiling to entertain future generations of readers for years to come).
To our loyal readers, here’s some of the exchange that took place between a Glynn County court bailiff and Gray who was getting harassed for taking pictures outside a complex that includes a courthouse, a jail and the sheriff’s office as he was working on an update from last week’s story where a Glynn County police officer body slammed a 70-year-old woman while another cop tried to stop a man from recording it:
“You’re a journalist for who?”
“Photography is Not a Crime.”
“I didn’t ask you … you said you were a journalist. Who are you a journalist? who are you employed?”
“That’s who I work for, Photography is Not a Crime.”
(Later in the conversation)
“Let me ask you one more time, you’re a journalist working for who?”
“Sir, I told you, Photography is Not a Crime.”
“I didn’t ask you that.”
“You’re misunderstanding.”
“No, you’re misunderstanding me. Who are you employed by?”
“Photography is Not a Crime dot com. It’s a news website out of Miami.”
It was almost funny enough to make us forget about the two times the bailiff snatched Gray’s camera for recording inmates at the beginning of the video.
And the numerous times the second bailiff, identified as Commander Fetch, threatened Gray for video recording inmates going into a courthouse by telling him “you and I are going to have a problem.”
Fetch also insists the public sidewalk outside the complex in downtown Brunswick is not public, but “ours” as in theirs.
Meanwhile, his partner, who we have not identified yet, gives up on Gray and decides to harass another man witnessing the exchange.
But that man is none other than Thomas Covenant, who also happens to work for Photography is Not a Crime, and is in fact, one of our most consistent public records gurus, so we’ll be getting that bailiff’s name in no time.
Eventually, Glynn County Sheriff E. Neal Jump came outside to sort it all out, sending the two buffoons away from “their” sidewalk, doing his best attempt at damage control.
And even though we all had a good laugh at the Dixie-style Abbott and Costello routine, we are still pissed about the two camera snatchings.
Call the Glynn County Sheriff’s Office at (912) 554-7600 to remind them that the only “credentials” anybody needs to take pictures in public is listed in the same Constitution to which they supposedly sworn an oath.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
