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Quiona’s Lament
Who’s Harassing Who?
I refuse to be intimidated by another right-wing, climate change-denying “property” management company, who invades my neighborhood, kills the environment, and like any another criminal mob, claims to own the Florida coast, and extort the residents who live under their leaf blower rule.
When I first met Quiona, she said she was a Trash Porter for the property management company that maintains the shopping plaza that sits conveniently between Galt Ocean Mile and A1A. As you’ll see later, she not only works for “LANDSCAPES BY DESIGN,” she speaks (authoritatively) for it.
I was surprised when Quiona took an authoritative attitude and tone when I met her a second time. She claimed that my taking pictures of her landscaping rig was “harassment,” and that she would be forced to call the police if I didn’t stop taking pictures on her “private” property.
On our third meeting at the neighborhood Dunkin’ Donuts, Quiona once again took time away from her “work,” to photograph me, and loudly announce to all those sitting outside the shop, that I was harassing her, and that she needed to be protected from me taking her picture.
After telling her crew that (“per the police”) I had the right to take pictures of her sod-laying workers, she added that if I got “too close,” they had the right to “take action.” A number of the workers took Quiona’s word, deciding to retaliate against me. Since nearly everyone now carries a phone, which doubles as a camera, I’m used to having subjects of photographs turn around and take pictures of me, but Quiona’s group of sod men narrated the session, saying they were photographing me, because I had a gun, and called the Fort Lauderdale police to say so. As I said, it doesn’t bother me that Quiona feels compelled to photograph me everytime I photograph her, but this time, it was criminal and dangerous for her(Landscape by Design) to make such a false accusation.
This time a local resident in the McDonald’s drive-thru, responds to Quiona’s plea to protect her from the “harassment” of having her picture taken. First she tells me how the police and her Landscapes by Design boss were working to ban me from the “property,” and then she recruits the McDonald’s customer’s help, who gets out of his truck and, with Quiona’s damsel-in-distress encouragement, proceeds to assault me. After hitting me, like so many before him, he then threatens to call the police and have me arrested for taking his picture.
Apparently, Quiona doesn’t have the mental capacity, or maybe she thinks (like Donald Trump republicans) that Landscape By Design (property management) rules supercede the United States Constitution. Here, she asks me to follow her to the Fort Lauderdale police officers who are eating breakfast at one of the Landscape By Design restaurants, and when I do, she complains that I’m following her. To Artie (the police officer’s)credit, he tells her (again) that “it’s perfectly legal for me to take pictures,” and Quiona leaves, but she obviously, still, doesn’t get it. She’s already been heard saying she understands (“per the Fort Lauderdale police”) that I have a “right” to take pictures, but every time I do, she stops working, photographs and lectures about my “harassing” her, making it impossible for her to do her job, that I have no right to do my job, and that she, as per fucking usual, is going to call the police to have me removed from Landscapes By Design’s “private” property.
The Coronavirus Cometh,
but some things never change.
Donald Trump-sucking, Florida governor Ron DeSantis commands that blowing leaves, like professional wrestling, is an “essential” job, and according to
one Fort Lauderdale police officer, photojournalism is “no job” at all.
“I’m sick of you,” the Fort Lauderdale police officer yells at me,”If you don’t stop harassing the landscapers, I’ll take you to jail for trespassing.”
I’ll take you to jail for trespassing.