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Even knowing I'd never get a straight answer, I pointedly asked whether I had been detained because I was African American or whether I looked Middle Eastern. The officers just smiled wryly.
A Park Police detective would later say that "a tourist" had reported me to police. As soon as I heard that, I knew which one it was. I recalled that as I began photographing the metal box, a woman pulled out her cell phone and began keeping a not-so-discreet eye on me.

This is the kind of busybody that ties up the police with unnecessary work while inconveniencing honest citizens.

It brings memories of the lady who claimed that three Middle Eastern men were speaking in English about blowing up something in Florida. Finally, it was revealed that they were med students, and all the brouhaha about running a Florida toll was media hype.

That incident with the lady in the restaurant happened around here. It didn't come down as you describe, at all. The woman appeared honest and stuck to her story, while the students were alternatively hostile and defensive, cried "racism!" loudly and often, and changed their stories to the police and to the press several times. And, oddly enough, my opinion is that the same thing was going on there that I believe happened here -- the students were deliberately baiting the woman. (They loudly said something like, "If they think 9-11 was bad, wait until they see what's going to happen soon . . . ") And another parallel besides the deliberate baiting and the "race card" - given that stories came out after 9-11 about vague threats made by Mohammed Atta and others that were NOT acted upon, the woman felt it was a good idea to notify the authorities.

You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.