Some of you are aware of what happened to me at The Canfield Fair last year, but may not be aware of why it's relevant. I'd like to bring to light why it's relevant to you, but first let me re-cap the events of Sunday, September 6, 2009. On Sunday, September 6, 2009 While attending the Canfield fair, I sat on a bench in a very open spot in front of the rock, and began to take hundreds of random photographs of the crowd, an activity encouraged by the fair, publicly stated on their website . At a point, Jason W. Mcferren of New Wilmington Pa., and his family sat down on the bench next to me. I was openly photographing people, and that immediately caught Mr. McFerren’s interest. I heard him comment to his wife about my activity, and looked at him and his wife looking at me. What I was doing was none of their business, and their comments to each other were none of mine, so I went on with my photographing. After a little time passed, it became too dark for me to get quality photos, so I got up, and began to walk to the north-west. As I walked away, Mr. Mcferren notified some of the last people I photographed, that I had taken their pictures. I can only imagine what he said. I walked about 100 feet, and was between The Canfield Fair Administration Building, and The Canfield fair souvenir booth, when I felt a hard blow to my hand that was carrying my camera. I would guess it was a forcible kick. I turned to see who would do such a thing. I didn’t recognize the faces of two angry men, posturing for a fight, screaming at me that I was a pervert, and that I had taken perverted photos of their children. I felt at that point the most important thing to do would be to try to calm these men down, and try to reason with them. This was a very public scene with hundreds watching. I could see in the eyes of the men, the watching crowd was the only thing stopping them from beating me to a bloody pulp. I kept waiting for the police to intervene, as I tried to calm the men down. Although I was under no obligation to do so, legal, or otherwise, I offered to show the men the photos I had taken, and to delete the pictures of their relatives. The men refused to calm down. One of them grabbed my camera, and looked truly torn about smashing it on the ground. I told the man that he had better give me my camera back. The man told me I was never getting my camera back, and I replied, “Let’s let the police settle this.” I was alarmed that there were still no police on the scene. I began to holler at the top of my lungs, “Police! Will somebody get the police!” Mr. McFerren watching from a distance began to panic about what he had caused, found a police officer, and informed him that some citizens had captured a pervert. By this time, another officer was on scene. He had retrieved my camera for me, and I was explaining the situation to him. Once again, though I was under no legal obligation to do so, I asked the officer to review my photos so that he could see that I hadn’t done anything inappropriate. After reviewing my photos, The officer concluded that there was nothing inappropriate, and was about to let my attackers tell which photos they wanted to be deleted as per my suggestion, when the second set of officers, the ones Mr. McFerren had alerted, arrived on the scene. They asked the first officer on the scene what had transpired. The first officer brought the arriving officers current. “Should we all go to the police station, and sort this out?” The arriving officer asked. I said, “Let’s all go sit down, and sort this out, perhaps cooler heads will prevail.” The newly arrived officers, the ones that McFerren had told I was, “a pervert”, took my camera, grabbed me by my upper-arms and hustled me through the crowd of thousands, as my attackers followed hollering, “he’s a pervert, we caught a pervert. I told the officer that he didn’t have to hold my arm, that I wasn’t going to run away, that I had called for the police, and I wanted this thing to be resolved. He told me that I wasn’t being hand-cuffed, because I was co-operating. I wish you could have seen the looks on the faces in the crowd, as I was paraded in front of hundreds by the police, while my attackers screamed, “pervert”. When we arrived at the police station, The officers related what had happened to John Vogrin, assistant security chief of The Canfield Fair, leaving out much of the detail, and diminishing the fact that I was attacked. They also gave him my camera. When he questioned me, I once again relayed all the details of the incident, as Vogrin viewed my photos. I once again offered to delete the photos of the relatives of the people who attacked me. Although Vogrin, as all the other law enforcement officers who had reviewed my photos, couldn’t find anything offensible on my camera, he angrily demanded to know, “What legitimate reason would someone have for photographing a child that wasn't their own at The Canfield Fair”. Although I was under no legal obligation to do so, I explained to him that my wife and I are huge fans of The Canfield Fair, that I attended everyday, every year, and took thousands of photographs. That I participated in, “The shutterbug Contest” sponsored by the Fair, a contest in which the fair provides a camera, for the purpose of taking random, candid photos of the fair, and fair-goers, the object being, “To best capture the spirit of the fair”. I told him that I frequently enter the photos I take at the fair into the fair’s fine-arts photography competition, and have won ribbons, and that sometimes I use photos of people as inspiration for paintings. Vogrin couldn’t understand. He seemed to be enraged by explanation. He said, “Did you solicit them?” “Solicit who? I didn’t solicit anyone for anything.” I replied. He angrily informed me that a professional photographer can not take unsolicited photos of people without their permission. I told him that I wasn’t a professional photographer. “You paint people’s pictures from photos, and sell them right?”. I told him it would be nice if it were true, but no one buys my paintings. After looking at all the pictures, he took the camera to the angry people. I heard him tell them that they were random crowd pictures, and they didn't appear to target anyone in particular. They complained that they were young girls, and nobody should take their pictures, and they were scared. "These are crowd pictures, 60% of the crowd at the fair is young girls" I heard the cop tell them. The Vogrin came back, and told me that he had deleted the pictures the angry people wanted deleted, and that I was being evicted from the fair for one year. I was rather unhappy to hear that considering I hadn't done anything wrong, or out of the ordinary, and I told them so. "That's too bad, that's the way it is" a deputy sheriff said in a shitty tone. Another cop piped up and said, "Were you here yesterday? you fit the description of the guy that lady called about". "About what?" I asked. "She complained that someone who looks like you was taking people's pictures in the parking lot, as they got out of their cars". It sounded completely absurd to me. "get outta here, you never got a complaint like that!" I said before I could stop myself. That made everyone in the room laugh, except for the guy that made the claim, who replied, "Oh yes I did!" Vogrin said, "Look, we're being nice to you, and cutting you a break. You'd be smart to just move on." I didn't see it that way."I already have a ticket for tomorrow, can I get a refund?" I asked. That got a few more chuckles, and The shitty deputy sheriff told me to, “Shut-up”, and consider myself lucky, I was being allowed to leave. I don’t consider myself, “Lucky”. No attention was given to the fact that I was attacked. I was not provided with the names of my attackers. To the best of my knowledge, they were allowed to rejoin the fair believing that they had been in the right when they attacked me. The following day was the last day of the fair. I was still reeling over what had transpired, and frankly, pretty hurt over how I had been treated. I didn't know what I should do, I knew this incident would be talked about amongst everyone who knew me. I'm pretty proud of my standing in the community, and wanted to make clear exactly what had happened, so I wrote it all down, and posted it in my blog. I was quickly surprised how many people, many who knew me, and many who didn't, were outraged, by how I was treated, and took it upon themselves to spread the story. It was a tropic of discussion across the country via the internet. It was brought up for discussion on local talk radio, and I was contacted by The Warren Tribune Chronicle for a story they wrote about the incident. At this point, I felt the best thing I could do, would be to try to set up a meeting with the powers that be at the fair, and try to get them to resend Vogrin's discussion. After a great deal of delay, that meeting finally took place, and it was, lively and eventful to say the least.Please check back tomorrow for details of that meeting.
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