Effectiveness of footage leading to actual arrests, or any other camera sstories?

awlectric

awlectric

Young grasshopper
Feb 19, 2015
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Im curious if anyone has any actual real life cases in witch something actually happened , ie-a crime, ,,, trespass or burglary, ( or worse), the event got recorded , and someone actually got identified and arrested because of the footage? How much proof do the police actually need , or better yet, does the video need to be clear as in 100% frontal face shot ? How useful have the security cams actually been for you? Does anyone regret spending thousands on a system? I can see for buisnesses how it could be beneficial, but home users, have you ever seen anyone turn around and leave after seeing the cameras? How useful has your system been to you?
 
Yep,
I'm satisfy 100% of my installation.
I help often the police who comes to visit me each time something happened in my village.
Once Neighbor car stollen one year ago in the middle of the night, last week police arrestation for drugs suspect around 6AM/ night.
I will place some footage, once extract from my records story.
Ok, these shoots (all without any IR light, just street light)comes from my analog old cams, so quality is not goodd at all + digital zoom in, who generates a lot of noise and pixels...
But some pics :





On this one, the 4 thieves known cctv was present in my house and went hooded , but as i was not yet sleeping, I called the police and they were arrested 30 min later.
In fact they didn't arrived to start the engine of the stollen car and they pushed it on the road using their car.






So my conclusion : CCTV is necessary today. From my side I'm actually renewing my system with Full HD cams to improve the quality...
This is why HIK is a good alternative... Each time i replace an old Analog by MPixel cam, this is the day and night: nothing comparable...
 
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riri7707you live in a really dangerous area it looks like :(

I've had a cam for a few years but I am in the suburbs and things pretty much never happen here, so I've not expected much. I use my cams in any case to see if somebody's home, used them to catch the neighbor's dog a bunch of times chasing my kids (just saying it helped get them a citation).

I am not a paranoid person (door is never locked during the day even when we're not home, for example), but I wouldn't feel comfortable without my cams now. I like being able to go back and see what's what, even if it's to figure out what animal dropped a carcass on my walk way that I found a couple of months back. A neighbor a few doors up i think liked my setup so got some dummy cams but I don't know of anybody else in my hood with cameras at all.
 
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Caught kids checking my truck's door handles less than a week after I got an outdoor camera. I didn't pursue it, but I know which kids to keep an eye on now. I don't have time to go back and check all footage everyday, so not sure what else has happened. If something bad happens it will feel good to know exactly what went on,, catch them or not. Someone got into a car and stole stuff. We could only pin it down to a 3 day period. Would of been nice to know when it happened and if the person was on foot or crusin in a car. Also kinda sucked not knowing what they took. I also like being able to check in when I'm outta town.
 
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I just can't wait to get my setup delivered, just ordered the hik 7716 and 2332 turret.
 
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Having CCTV today when you have your home, is like having a TV/Fridge/washing machine, etc....
This is a necessary investment

What happens in reallity, thieves and drug dealers goes the most of time to the next house and not yours, if your cameras are seen from outside.
Thieves will not take any risks and will always choose the facility and not more than 5 minutes for their crime.

So it's a never ends story, because your neighbour probably will install also CCTV, etc...

Just a little real story as today the cities have more and more cams:
I participated to the CCTV study deployment of a city : 150 PTZ domes cams, and the results were great : 45% less criminality in 1 year.
But all youngs with drugs went to the nearest neighbour city to continue their crimes,dealing with drugs, etc.
So CCTV doesn't solved really the problem but move it somewhere else.
So this other city needed to invested too in CCTV security. due to the suddent criminatity growing.
At beginning, they invest on more patrol cars and city employees, but quickly the budget calculations went in favor of CCTV (ROI:return of investment)

And so on...

Morality, somewhere the CCTV have a long life behind..
The more difficult is to make the right choice for your needs, because more you read about and more you listen people and more it becomes a real brainstorming nightmare in your head.
So if we can help here sharing our experience,
You are welcome.
 
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Yeah, this is an upscale comunity and we dont need any riff raff around here
 
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Laws are very strict in some country.
So looking Inside neighbor area, street is quite always prohibited and the risk is simply to go to court and get a hudge sentence + $$$ to pay.
So it's somewhere not easy to fix the rules and limits.
I had at the begining some official complains from my neighbors who wanted simply I took off my cams.
Cost me 2 months to have official validation by Police and administration.
Finnally they are still in place, but I'm just reponsable about their use and recording footage.
Since, one of my neighbor look the ground when I cross him in the street :-)

The funny thing, is now the Police always comes to visit me, when somthing happened in the area to check for specific dates and hours of my recording footage.

So not happens very often, let's say twice per year actually.

From begin of this year, they just went once to get on an USB key a full day footage of my street cam.
They wanted to check all cars running this day suite to a stollen house 500 meters from my house...

But the fact is: I'm not in front of my cams and screen at all. Just use them when I saw something unusual, the postman, visitors ringing my door, UPS/FEDEX/DHL when waiting some delivery shipment, cars who parked in front of my garage door,that's it.
 
riri7707 said:
What happens in reallity, thieves and drug dealers goes the most of time to the next house and not yours, if your cameras are seen from outside.
Click to expand...

Dangit, I just wanted to get rid of the thieves. Was wondering where my door to door drug dealer has been.
 
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What happens in reallity, thieves and drug dealers goes the most of time to the next house and not yours, if your cameras are seen from outside.
Click to expand...
Absolutely believe this. I swear I read on freakonomics or similar (but I cannot find it), further affirmation of this kind of behavior.

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Installing a PTZ to spy in your neighbor's yard is almost certainly a no-no. My cams absolutely do capture what's in my neighbor's yards but only because it's impossible to capture mine without also capturing theirs, but the point is my cameras are setup to monitor my property first and foremost. Same for the street and my neighbors' front yards. It's really impossible to set up a cam without inadvertently capturing extra stuff outside, but it cannot be your priority to do so anymore than sitting in your front window with a telephoto lens and taking pics of your neighbor's bedroom is a good idea.
 
Several years ago, my first-gen Panasonic IP cams proved the power of deterrence, as far as I'm concerned. I had a neighbor who had produced a real bad seed for a son: an early 20-something slacker who was in and out of jail and basically had every visual appearance of being a POS criminal. Guy used to go out and sit in his car parked on the street with the seat cranked way back and just WATCH people come and go out of their houses for hours on end ... just sitting there staring at your every move. Once I saw him open his trunk and I caught a glimpse of an iMac sticking out and other expensive electronics crammed in there. Plus, of all things: a bright yellow, double-tank SCUBA set-up with a regulator still attached! Believe me, this guy in no way resembled a Jacques Cousteau wannabe and I had an immediate gut feeling that these were probably stolen items–but just a feeling.

So one day I leave on a two-day trip to Seattle. As soon as I get off the plane around midnight at SeaTac, I turn on my cellphone and I’ve got an e-mail waiting from one of my three Panny IP cams: “Motion detected on patio.” I went on to the hotel, got out my laptop, logged on and checked the stored frames. Sure enough, Neighbor Boy had come over soon after I left and hoisted himself up on the patio wall far enough so he could lean over to closely inspect my back door. He did it twice, tripping the camera motion detector. The second time he glanced up and noticed the Panasonic camera in the back bedroom window pointing right at him. It had an instant effect: He did a very obvious double-take, then dropped down off the wall and ducked his head down out of sight of the cam. My take on this was that he was probably sitting in his car when I left earlier that day, watching the block per usual. He saw me walk out carrying an overnight luggage bag in my hand—blatantly (and stupidly) advertising the fact that I was going out of town! Since he didn’t actually set *foot* into my property from his property but just leaned in and looked, I didn’t report it.

Fast forward a few months later: Neighbor and son-from-h*ll move out and new guy moves in. One day there’s a knock on my door and two sheriff’s deputies are out there. One has a shotgun; the other has an AR-15. “Hi, we’re serving a felony warrant next door and we’d like to come into your patio so we can observe the back door just to make sure nobody runs out.” I immediately wondered: What’s this NEW neighbor up to? Turned out they weren’t looking for the new guy. They were after the previous residents, more specifically: The Kid. Their info was out of date and they didn’t know he’d moved. When I asked the deputies what he was wanted for, they told me: “Multiple warrants for residential burglaries in this area.” Surprise ... NOT. Don’t know if they ever caught up with him—I know they did contact the property owner looking for a forwarding address. Anyway, I’ve since upgraded to Axis and I’m still a firm believer in the deterrence factor of IP cameras mounted where they are conspicuously visible.
 
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stevejay said:
Several years ago, my first-gen Panasonic IP cams proved the power of deterrence, as far as I'm concerned. I had a neighbor who had produced a real bad seed for a son: an early 20-something slacker who was in and out of jail and basically had every visual appearance of being a POS criminal. Guy used to go out and sit in his car parked on the street with the seat cranked way back and just WATCH people come and go out of their houses for hours on end ... just sitting there staring at your every move. Once I saw him open his trunk and I caught a glimpse of an iMac sticking out and other expensive electronics crammed in there. Plus, of all things: a bright yellow, double-tank SCUBA set-up with a regulator still attached! Believe me, this guy in no way resembled a Jacques Cousteau wannabe and I had an immediate gut feeling that these were probably stolen items–but just a feeling.

So one day I leave on a two-day trip to Seattle. As soon as I get off the plane around midnight at SeaTac, I turn on my cellphone and I’ve got an e-mail waiting from one of my three Panny IP cams: “Motion detected on patio.” I went on to the hotel, got out my laptop, logged on and checked the stored frames. Sure enough, Neighbor Boy had come over soon after I left and hoisted himself up on the patio wall far enough so he could lean over to closely inspect my back door. He did it twice, tripping the camera motion detector. The second time he glanced up and noticed the Panasonic camera in the back bedroom window pointing right at him. It had an instant effect: He did a very obvious double-take, then dropped down off the wall and ducked his head down out of sight of the cam. My take on this was that he was probably sitting in his car when I left earlier that day, watching the block per usual. He saw me walk out carrying an overnight luggage bag in my hand—blatantly (and stupidly) advertising the fact that I was going out of town! Since he didn’t actually set *foot* into my property from his property but just leaned in and looked, I didn’t report it.

Fast forward a few months later: Neighbor and son-from-h*ll move out and new guy moves in. One day there’s a knock on my door and two sheriff’s deputies are out there. One has a shotgun; the other has an AR-15. “Hi, we’re serving a felony warrant next door and we’d like to come into your patio so we can observe the back door just to make sure nobody runs out.” I immediately wondered: What’s this NEW neighbor up to? Turned out they weren’t looking for the new guy. They were after the previous residents, more specifically: The Kid. Their info was out of date and they didn’t know he’d moved. When I asked the deputies what he was wanted for, they told me: “Multiple warrants for residential burglaries in this area.” Surprise ... NOT. Don’t know if they ever caught up with him—I know they did contact the property owner looking for a forwarding address. Anyway, I’ve since upgraded to Axis and I’m still a firm believer in the deterrence factor of IP cameras mounted where they are conspicuously visible.
Click to expand...
Good read.

Bet your life they caught him. People like that don't stay out of prison for long. Just too stupid. I saw a video of a guy caught on a dropcam, nice image, after he walks into an apartment and sees it. Perfect shot of his face. he closes the door, then renters with his face covered and steals the camera. All of its video is offsite so he was caught the second he opened the door the first time.
 
It all began with a shady 19 year old nephew living next door, nothing to do but sit on the porch and keep track of my schedule. I'd notice when I was working in the garage with the door open, he would start riding his cousins little bikes in the street where he could get a good view into the garage. When he realized I was at my workbench, he went back to the porch. He thought he was smooth. He also didn't know another relative that would stop by and have a beer with me from time to time warned me what a POS he was. Told me about how he broke a door glass pane out to break in when previous owner lived there...sure enough, plexiglass pane I never noticed on back door.


Now there are some kids growing up down my street. I notice they like to play with basketballs in front of my house when the garage door is open. They usually don't realize I'm in the garage at my workbench. When they do, they suddenly take their group down the street.

I firmly believe most burglaries aren't random. It's going to be someone you know.
 
I have had many, many arrests from our cameras. Footage is used at a minimum of a several times a week, almost daily, to answer some problem or question. Most recent arrest was last week. Some times the arrests happen that day, sometimes they do not know who it is at first and it takes a while. Got a call regarding a month old break in from the cops a few weeks ago. We had figured they were long gone and it would remain unsolved but they had arrested three guys for multiple break ins and robbing two banks. Items they found matched our footage so they were linked to it and charged with it also.

I have no idea how many arrests we've had form the cameras but it is a ton, I'd say we're well into triple digits in arrests just in the last three years. Really the results from footage totally depend on the poliece department handling the case. Some are great and will work the case hard and love the footage and hunt forever to get the perp. I have a county nearby that I can provide license plates, face shots, video of them breaking in and loading up a vehicle, and they will still not arrest them. What the heck? My face shots are an IP camera from 12 feet away, the LP shots are clear as day. Still nothing done. Had one recently in this county where I have good video of a truck ramming a gate at 35mph or so and destroying the front of the truck. They have never found it. I did not catch the LP in this case but still the truck style, color and year were plainly evident and the truck needed a whole new front end and they still never found it?! Sigh.

With over 1,000 cameras there is always something interesting to watch!
 
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