Photo by epmd.

We get a lot of emails about behavior on Metro from our readers, but we recently received one which caught our attention — about someone taking photographs of a woman’s feet inside a station.

I’m writing you with a very weird occurrence that I observed on the metro probably 2 months or so ago. I would normally just ignore it but today my best friend told me she saw a very similar incident by a man who fits exactly the description. What I saw was a large (6’3″/250) African-American man who appeared and acted like he may have a mental or emotional condition indiscreetly snapping several cell phone camera pictures of a young woman probably mid-20s reading a book. He sat across from her pretending to text but my roommate and I could see clearly he was taking pictures of her. He even got up and stood next to her to take pictures. I wish we had said something but we didn’t know what to do. I had forgotten about it until my friend told me that she saw a man who fit the exact description, with the same blue flip phone, clearly taking pictures of another young woman’s feet. Braver than I she yelled at him and called the train’s attention to what he was doing. I don’t remember the time or line from 2 months ago where I saw him, but last night she saw him on a Glenmont-bound red line, getting on at Bethesda around 5:50 pm. Can you please let your readers know that this suspicious man may be taking invasive photos, particularly of young women on metro trains, and to be alert and let a driver or station manager know if they see such activity? As a young woman who frequents metro herself, I am more than concerned that potential predators could be photographing me or even identifying information somehow.

While it creeped her out, it’s not illegal. Despite the fact that Metro Transit Police have tried to stop people from doing so in the past, Metro stations are public property, and, hence, fair game when it comes to taking photographs of people inside them.