Re: A Very serious situation

[Nigel Orr <nigel@xxxxxxx>]

At 23:17 08/10/00 +0100, you wrote:
>Tonight the cul de sac was scouted by four suspects in a car and shot
off
>when they were seen. We believe we are going to be hit either tonight
or
>at the weekend, the cars/houses may be attacked.

Could you contact some local security firms?  It's possible some of them
might be prepared to hire you some equipment (cameras, time lapse recorders
etc).  That assumes you find a good one- some of them would probably prefer
to come round and visit you and try to scare you into buying stuff you
don't really need...

I had the same sort of incentive to get my first camera connected, but
fortunately they were only out to damage property, not people.  Sadly for
them, I came back when they were trying to light a fire in my garage and
one of them (ahem) ran across the path of my car- "hadn't a chance to
stop,
officer".

The policeman obviously found it quite amusing to go off looking for
someone "dressed in grey tracksuit, with a pronounced limp".  Not
that I'd
recommend deliberately running them over... just that as accidents go it
was quite a satisfying one!

>a. copy all cameras onto single tape at once i.e. quarter screen.

I'd recommend you stay clear of that- best to get full screen, best chance
of recognising someone.  As someone else suggested, a couple of cheap vcrs
would do the job, and probably cheaper.  You can then also put one in each
of several houses, so there's less chance of the cameras and vcrs being
stolen too...

>b. give me some advice. Anything at all would be helpful.

I'd suggest you tell the police of your concerns/plans, at least they might
manage to patrol the area a bit more to keep them away for a few days while
you get cameras etc sorted out.  They might also be able to advise where to
go for equipment, and will tell you exactly what you would need for
evidence.

Maybe you could arrange for a rota of folk with cameras to keep an eye on
the street for a few days.  Since the initial vandalism, I've had one more
problem- kids waiting for a school bus repeatedly kicking a garden gate
down.  I used the cctv to see when it was being done (it was just after I
left for work), then sat at home and ran off a couple of 35mm films of them
doing it next day.  That's a lot more useful to the police than fuzzy cctv
cassettes.

From my experience, the cheap cctv cameras aren't any good for reading a
registration more than a few metres away.  Especially if the car is
moving.  Actually, I'd say they aren't really good for anything more than
monitoring someone approaching a door, there's not really enough definition
for a good picture of a person more than a few metres away.

If you can, it might be an idea to have a couple at the entrance to the
cul-de-sac, and you might have a chance of seeing details of cars coming
and going.  But real photos will be much better, even if they're not
closeups they can be enlarged significantly and still have better
resolution than a cheap cctv camera.  If you have an idea that they're
going to return in the next week or so, it's worth keeping watch.

I do wish you all the best in getting it sorted- I've only had a couple of
minor problems with local toe-rags causing damage, and I know how
unsettling it is- first instinct is 'put the house on the market'.  But
handing the police a dozen prints of the damage being done, with faces
easily identifiable is tremendously satisfying, even if they might never do
anything about it...

And, from experience, don't confront them again, but you probably know
that.  Photographs, photographs, and more photographs.  Very hard to
resist, but much more useful to the police than bruises and cuts (been
there, done that...).

I think if I saw a person being attacked, assuming it was a neighbour, not
one of the group, I'd _consider_ intervening (although that's how I got the
bruises last time) if there were other folk doing so (there weren't for me,
plenty watching, none prepared to help), otherwise it's best just to record
what they are doing.  But it's awfully hard to know, and it's probably
advisable just to watch instead (crazy world...)

Just bear in mind that most video monitoring systems are needed to run
24hours a day, every day of the year, so there are some compromises for
quality to avoid the nuisance of changing tapes etc.  If you really need
good coverage for a week, get as much quality as you can (a standard VCR on
long play mode would probably be ideal- a quad picture time lapse recorder
might be useless).

I hope some of that is useful, keep us posted!

Nigel
nigel@xxxxxxx


-------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~>
Get a NextCard Visa, in 30 seconds!
1. Fill in the brief application
2. Get rates as low as 2.99% Intro APR with NO annual fee!
http://click.egroups.com/1/9333/9/_/2065/_/971082557/
---------------------------------------------------------------------_->