(no subject)
If anyone happens to come across any pictures of Britney Spears at the LA Zoo, let me know... I know for sure that I am in many of them, but I don't know if mine will ever get published or anything. She visited Saturday and we had about thirty paparazzi descend on us. They were surprisingly well behaved... I expected their caravan to try to follow her car in through the side gate, but the officer we posted there says they didn't even complain when he stopped them. I was posted with several officers at the gate, expecting them to try to bum rush us, but they all got in line and bought tickets after all. Many of them pleasantly exchanged greetings with us as they entered...
Once they were all inside, they fanned out and searched the zoo, but they didn't have much luck at first since the party was all in behind the scenes areas with Zoo staff. They all came out in the giraffe exhibit and hand fed them... several paparazzi were out there on the patron side with us, but they didn't even realize who was over there feeding them... I don't know, but I think a picture of Britney's kid feeding a baby giraffe might have been worth something to them.
After that, though, they decided to enter the patron areas of the zoo, and it was on. They were on one of the six-seat carts (Britney with child in lap, some guy, and another couple, and two Zoo staff) and my partner and I were the first ones to get over to the Australia House, where they were coming out from behind the scenes areas to the patron areas... we followed them around on our bikes. It took maybe three minutes before the first camera guy found us, he started hollering in his nextel, and then the race was on! They drove up past Zebras, Orangutans, Elephants, Tigers, the Chimp Penthouse, the Hillside animals, and then back in to restricted areas... all the time with eventually all thirty of them running along, getting in the way, taking pictures, tripping themselves as we would almost run them down with our lights flashing and sirens blaring at them as we yelled for them to stay back... one of them lost his camera when he waited just a little too long as he took his pictures, and his camera strap got caught in my partner's handlebar as he rode by, and the camera was jerked out of his hands and hit the road... don't know if it was actually damaged or not, but anyway...
We lost them after we went past tigers and headed up the hillside... heh... the cart almost lost us, as they floored it to outrun the paparazzi, and let me tell you, it wasn't easy going uphill to the top of the zoo at about fifteen miles an hour... actually, only three of us kept up with the cart, the other officers fell back, as did all of the paparazzi.
I was actually surprised at how well behaved they were... even when we were yelling at them to keep back, they stayed polite, "sorry sir", and whatnot. I know they want to get pictures, but most of them seemed to try to be following instructions... at least mine, I was simply yelling at them to not obstruct the cart, and for the most part they listened. Some of the other guys were yelling at them that they couldn't take pictures and stuff, and they were naturally ignored.
Britney and party seemed to have fun at their high-speed romp through the zoo... they were laughing the whole time, and waving at startled patrons and stuff when they slowed down at the exhibits they wanted to look at. They went out of their way to thank us profusely for keeping the frenzied camerapeople at bay.
Ah well, another day at work... this place is a zoo, I tell ya...
Once they were all inside, they fanned out and searched the zoo, but they didn't have much luck at first since the party was all in behind the scenes areas with Zoo staff. They all came out in the giraffe exhibit and hand fed them... several paparazzi were out there on the patron side with us, but they didn't even realize who was over there feeding them... I don't know, but I think a picture of Britney's kid feeding a baby giraffe might have been worth something to them.
After that, though, they decided to enter the patron areas of the zoo, and it was on. They were on one of the six-seat carts (Britney with child in lap, some guy, and another couple, and two Zoo staff) and my partner and I were the first ones to get over to the Australia House, where they were coming out from behind the scenes areas to the patron areas... we followed them around on our bikes. It took maybe three minutes before the first camera guy found us, he started hollering in his nextel, and then the race was on! They drove up past Zebras, Orangutans, Elephants, Tigers, the Chimp Penthouse, the Hillside animals, and then back in to restricted areas... all the time with eventually all thirty of them running along, getting in the way, taking pictures, tripping themselves as we would almost run them down with our lights flashing and sirens blaring at them as we yelled for them to stay back... one of them lost his camera when he waited just a little too long as he took his pictures, and his camera strap got caught in my partner's handlebar as he rode by, and the camera was jerked out of his hands and hit the road... don't know if it was actually damaged or not, but anyway...
We lost them after we went past tigers and headed up the hillside... heh... the cart almost lost us, as they floored it to outrun the paparazzi, and let me tell you, it wasn't easy going uphill to the top of the zoo at about fifteen miles an hour... actually, only three of us kept up with the cart, the other officers fell back, as did all of the paparazzi.
I was actually surprised at how well behaved they were... even when we were yelling at them to keep back, they stayed polite, "sorry sir", and whatnot. I know they want to get pictures, but most of them seemed to try to be following instructions... at least mine, I was simply yelling at them to not obstruct the cart, and for the most part they listened. Some of the other guys were yelling at them that they couldn't take pictures and stuff, and they were naturally ignored.
Britney and party seemed to have fun at their high-speed romp through the zoo... they were laughing the whole time, and waving at startled patrons and stuff when they slowed down at the exhibits they wanted to look at. They went out of their way to thank us profusely for keeping the frenzied camerapeople at bay.
Ah well, another day at work... this place is a zoo, I tell ya...