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I meant to post this story a few days ago, but had too much on my plate. Last Sunday at about 10 p.m., a police officer knocked on my door and told me that someone had been mugged right down the street from my house just an hour earlier. The victim said the muggers ran up in the direction of my house, and a neighbor who captured the mugging on his Wyze cam told the officer that "the man in that house over there has some really good cameras". The officer asked if I could check my cameras, which I was glad to do.
As it turned out, my system had recorded everything except the mugging itself. In this video you can see the victim walk by my house, and then a few minutes later the getaway vehicle (a stolen Nissan Xterra with a fake paper license plate) stops just past my home and waits for four teenagers to walk up the street and get into the vehicle. Fortunately the victim was not badly hurt, but the officer was thrilled that I had captured details about the vehicle and the clothing worn by the perps.
The officer gave me the card of a detective who was working this case, and asked if I could put my video footage onto Youtube and send the detective a link. As it turned out, this same group had committed several other crimes in that same vehicle over the past few nights. But this time the police had more to go on - they had the color and model of the vehicle, they knew it was 15 to 20 years old (1st generation Xterra), they knew it was missing hubcaps, and they knew it had a paper tag (since my LPR camera couldn't image it).
I was contacted by the detective the next morning, who thanked me for the video, and told me that the entire group had been captured downtown in the vehicle later than night, still carrying the victim's stolen iPhone. The vehicle they were in and the clothing they were wearing exactly matched what was in the video. They were not going to get away with any claim that "We found this stuff - we didn't mug anyone!"
So the moral is that even when you don't get a good image of a license plate, good video can still make a difference in solving a crime.
As it turned out, my system had recorded everything except the mugging itself. In this video you can see the victim walk by my house, and then a few minutes later the getaway vehicle (a stolen Nissan Xterra with a fake paper license plate) stops just past my home and waits for four teenagers to walk up the street and get into the vehicle. Fortunately the victim was not badly hurt, but the officer was thrilled that I had captured details about the vehicle and the clothing worn by the perps.
The officer gave me the card of a detective who was working this case, and asked if I could put my video footage onto Youtube and send the detective a link. As it turned out, this same group had committed several other crimes in that same vehicle over the past few nights. But this time the police had more to go on - they had the color and model of the vehicle, they knew it was 15 to 20 years old (1st generation Xterra), they knew it was missing hubcaps, and they knew it had a paper tag (since my LPR camera couldn't image it).
I was contacted by the detective the next morning, who thanked me for the video, and told me that the entire group had been captured downtown in the vehicle later than night, still carrying the victim's stolen iPhone. The vehicle they were in and the clothing they were wearing exactly matched what was in the video. They were not going to get away with any claim that "We found this stuff - we didn't mug anyone!"
So the moral is that even when you don't get a good image of a license plate, good video can still make a difference in solving a crime.
