So it's Saturday night and a mother and daughter are cruising down 82nd Ave, snapping photos of women they think might be prostitutes. This is part of the Montavilla in Action neighborhood activists' plan for Community Patrols: people taking to the streets, shooting photos of women who look like prostitutes and sending those photos to the police. Montavilla in Action leaders hope the photos will help them agitate for the reinstatement of the Prostitution Free Zone, a law enforcement policy the ACLU says is unconstitutional.

edit: Montavilla in Action emailed to say they do not encourage taking photos of prostitutes by members of their community patrols. I got the impression in conversations that this is what they were asking neighbors to do - document the prostitution in their area with cameras - but I don't have any specific quotes in my notes about it, so you'll have to take their word for it that they never officially told members to take photos of suspected prostitutes on 82nd. end edit

So the mother and daughter vigilante photographer team rolls up next to two women sitting on a bench near 82nd and Burnside who "flash some photos" at the mom & daughter. But when the passenger points her camera toward them, the two women on the street get up and run toward the car, sprayed mace at the activist neighbors as they frantically tried to roll up their windows.

One of the downsides of vigilantism: sometimes when you're trying to protect the public good by taking photos of suspicious-looking people on the street, the people you deem suspicious get mad. And they carry mace.

Also: Montavilla in Action warned its members to stay safe after the attempted macing, saying "a mother and daughter were attacked by two prostitutes." But there's no definite proof the women sitting on the street were for sale other than the way they were dressed and this confusing photo-flashing. Maybe they're a mother and daughter pair, too, creeped out by a car taking photos of them?