Originally Posted by
polonius
So while in theory, your assertion that there is nothing wrong with a police officer approaching someone doing something they find "unusual" and just verifying that there is nothing illegal going on sounds reasonable enough, until you realise that if society accepts this, then it means that certain people doing certain jobs are expected to tolerate nearly constant harassment.
^ to your whole post. And it's not just creative people. In my previous job I occasionally supervised radio measurements in urban areas. Sometimes we had a big truck in the middle of the night (so we wouldn't disrupt traffic), sometimes we had big antennas on a car or on tripods. Once we were out near the airport.
I always got written statements from the relevant authorities in advance, and we had a reassuring logo on the truck, our badges and our business cards, but we still got a lot of nervous questions from locals and, in one case, the police. If I had to do it again, I'd task an extra person just to talk to people so the engineers could get on with the work.