...because of a photograph.


Where do I even begin

This past week was a hell of a ride to say the least! Starting last Monday we had another bad storm. It was a rough one with hail and high winds – thought for sure a tornado was coming this time The electricity kept coming and going but in the end remained on which was a big surprise considering we have lost it 3 times in the last couple weeks due to storms. I attempted to grab some hail but kept getting bonked on the head when going outside so yea, forget that! The storm ended up frying the Ethernet cards in the computers as well as the port switches. So we had to run out and buy some more of those and were attempting to get the house back online when there was a knock at the door.

So yea, to the part of the story I know you are waiting for due to the journal title

So I go to the door and peek outside and see two men standing there in dark suits. The first thing I think of is great, religious door to door preachers So I open the door with tools in hand and am like yes? They look at me and pull out some ID and say:

”Hello maam, we are from the FBI, I am agent Hunt and this is agent Lamb, we are looking for Lisa Sweet and Josh Brown to ask them a few questions regarding a case we are working on.”

Hehehe – I am like, yeaaaaa –youre kidding right?! Their lack of smiles tell me nope, not kidding. So I tell them to stay there a second and go back to the bedroom and say hey Josh, there are two FBI agents at our door that want to question us. He is like, yeaaaaa, youre kidding right?! I am like nope, I kid not! So I go back to the door and go outside, no didn’t invite them in right away – would you?? And say hello I am Lisa Sweet, Josh will be with us in a moment, what is this all about? They say they are investigating some incidents that happened in a state we used to live in, at the time we used to live there, having to due with some vandalism and other assorted activity on some cars in the area, cars like hummers and SUVs (sport utility vehicle). I am like oookaaay. So Josh gets to the door and everyone flashes their ID again, this time I inspect closer cause hey, you never know! They tell us they have to question us separately so Josh stays outside while they come inside with me to ask me some questions.

So we are sitting in the living room, the roommate has retreated to his bedroom a bit freaked out and they start to ask me questions. One of my cats Romeo has decided he has a love of the men in black and wont leave them alone. Its quite amusing to watch them as this huge white fluffy cat keeps bothering them for attention. Finally I pick up Romeo and bring him back to our roommates room and ask him to keep Romeo in there until this is over as he is furring up the G men!

I come back out and they proceed to start to ask me questions about a certain incident that happens a couple years back while we were living in said state. So here is where I take a break from the interrogation description and flash back to give you some insight on why we have become suspects in this case.

As you know Josh and I are photographers, we bring our cameras most everywhere we go. We are always taking photos of things that interest us for many reasons as most of you will probably understand. We have run into people who don’t like this in the past but this incident was by far the worst. Josh was out running some errands and took a picture of a particularly tacky car, a bright yellow Hummer that was just ugly as all get out. Josh and I find cars like these a complete waste unless you are in the army or live in an area that requires such a vehicle, like in the mountains or whatnot. Certainly not in the city we were in. So anyway, he is pulling out of a public parking lot and snaps a pic or two and leaves. Well to make a long story short seems the woman driving saw him and freaked out. She took the license plate or something and cried to her husband about some wacky guy taking pictures of her

So get this, her husband then somehow gets our home address and shows up on our doorstep threatening us because we took a stupid picture of his stupid car in a public place. He was like yea you scared my wife and I don’t appreciate you taking pictures of our car. He was very aggressive and downright scary with his threats. We tried to explain to him that we didn’t care about his wife, we were only taking pictures of his obnoxious car. Well you can imagine that didn’t go over well with him and he made more threats. At this point I was getting angry as no one comes to my house and threatens us for taking a damn picture in a public place! It wasn’t like we were going to give it out to people or make it public, Josh just wanted to share the amusement with me as we have done so many times in the past. So I got up in his face and was like you need to leave now! He was all huffy and saying this and that, going on about how he was going to watch us etc etc. I yelled at him to leave and when he was walking back to his car I got a bit smart assed and brought out our camera waving it at him yelling ohhh look I might take a picture of you outside in my parking area! Of course that pissed him off more but I didn’t care, as I was livid that this person had done this. And of course a bit scared that he would turn and do something so I took his tag number down and shut the door.

Josh and I were of course very upset and freaked out by all of this. We have taken many a street shot and while some people have expressed a dislike of it, it was usually only dirty looks or the finger flipped at us. We have never had something like this happen before. So we sat and tried to calm down. We talked about everything for a couple of hours trying to decide whether or not we should call the police. I mean, I wanted to but wasn’t sure it was enough to warrant a call cause we didn’t want to waste their time. But in the end we decided it was the best thing to do, to make sure we had all of this on record in case this asshole decided to come back or do something else to us. So we called the police and they came out and took a report. They were very nice and said it was a good thing to call and have a report on file just in case as you never know what can happen. Yea, I thought so too until two FBI agents show up on my doorstep to question us because we filed a police report on an altercation with a crazy guy who owns a Hummer.

Because of that incident the FBI felt it necessary to question us in regards to their case. Granted, it is pretty crazy that this happens in the same time period as the criminal activity did but damn! I didn’t even know that stuff had happened and the only reason we called the police was to make sure it was reported for our safety! So the FBI question us for about 2 hours each, I kid you not, it felt like they were never going to stop asking questions and most of them I could hardly remember! I am like damn, I had almost forgotten about that crazy guy even until they brought it up. So they finally let us come in together and we are all sitting there and they serve us a subpoena. Now the subpoena is only for handwriting samples and fingerprints at this point but they also ask if we will submit to a lie detector test and let them scan our computers. By this time I am annoyed that I am going through this shit for someone elses crimes, but I have nothing to worry about because we didn’t do anything and because we are innocent. They say we can either have them fly us out to the place where it happened or we can do this at our local FBI field office. Of course we are like yea – we will take the local choice thank you!

So on Tuesday we had to go in and give them a handwriting sample that consisted of about 5 pages of writing things! My hand was so tired, I hadn’t written that much since back in high school It was basic info and writing the alphabet and numbers and random paragraphs and at the end they asked us to write two words 20 times each. When they told us the words it confirmed my suspicions as to what this was really all about. Before I came in I naturally did a search online for any information that could give me a better idea as to what the case was about since they wouldn’t tell us much. I had found some information about the ELF (earth liberation front) being in the area with their eco-terrorism about the same time we were there. So they told us to write the words elf and gluttony 20 times each and as soon as he said elf I figured they must have been investigating the ELFs criminal activities and they thought Josh and I to be eco-terrorists!!

So after the handwriting they take us in for the fingerprinting and it figures the digital is down so we do it the old fashioned way, ink. They ink our hands and proceed to print us and it figures I have to do mine twice cause the first wasn’t clear enough LOL! So then they walk us to the bathroom so we can wash our hands and while we are walking through the offices I cant help but notice how white and bare the walls are. I joke about how I want to put handprints all over the white walls – the artist in me you know

So then we are allowed to leave and they tell us they will call soon to set up the appt for the polygraph test (lie detector test) and hard drive scan. And that, my friends, is where we are at in the investigation of us

All in all while I find the proceedings interesting and mildly amusing, the lie detector test should be very interesting and I really wanted to ask them if there really was such a thing as the X-Files, in the end we are very annoyed to be put through all of this and be considered suspects/eco-terrorists! That is just not something we would do. We are of course worried, shit it is the FBI after all, but we didn’t do anything wrong so there is nothing they can charge us with. But we are looking forward to having them clear us to get all of this shit over with and will keep you up to date as to what is going on

So remember my friends, photography can be dangerous! But keep on shooting and creating, freedom is a wonderful thing and we don’t want to lose that



lisa


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