These Lexington crime fighters take on thieves, wrongdoers. Door cameras help police.
An unidentified woman didn’t seem to hesitate when she stepped onto a Lexington resident’s front porch and snatched a box right off the doorstep on the morning of May 13.
If she saw the doorbell camera that recorded her, she certainly didn’t acknowledge it. She stuffed the box in a bag on her shoulder and carried both down the sidewalk while other people jogged past the house and cars drove by.
The doorbell camera footage from the house was obtained by the Lexington Police Department and shared online on May 22. Police said it hadn’t yet led to an arrest, but investigators received several tips about the case after the footage was made public.
Another doorbell camera video showed two suspects who didn’t seem to have a clue they were filmed as they twice broke eggs and threw kitty litter on the front porch of a Lexington house. The camera also caught them as they scrambled away from the scene and into the snow late at night on Nov. 30.
An Oct. 7 case of mail theft was caught on another residential camera when a woman pulled up to a Lexington home on a motorized scooter, scooped a box off the doorstep, put on the scooter and sped off.
The cases were just a few examples of an increasingly common trend — police getting access to residential camera feeds to identify suspects. The cameras pay attention when other potential witnesses don’t.
Lt. Clay Combs from the Lexington police Property Crimes Section has been an officer for 26 years. He gets “way more” residential camera footage now than he did in the past.
“A canvass was basically going down the street and interviewing people to see if they saw anything,” Combs said, remembering when he started.
The procedure has changed. One of the first things investigators do is ask nearby residents about camera footage.
“We usually have a lot of luck there,” he said.
The luck is evident when the footage shows up regularly on the Lexington Police Department website.
The cameras from which police can often get footage have become increasingly popular. The smart home security camera market was estimated to be worth more than $3.7 billion in 2019, according to a study from Grand View Research. The market was expected to grow nearly 16 percent each year from 2020 to 2027, according to the study.
But the effectiveness of the footage can depend on a lot of factors, Combs said. The cameras have to be positioned properly. If the area is too dark or the camera isn’t pointed in the right direction, it limits what investigators can use, Combs said.
Sometimes the cameras can also be too visible to informed wrongdoers looking for them. The perpetrators will make a point to keep their faces out of sight.
“When somebody says they have video, we get excited, but we have to see the video and make sure it’s something we can use first,” Combs said.
The holiday season makes residential cameras particularly valuable. With gifts being delivered to doorsteps from online shopping services, porch thieves are typically more active than any other time of year. With COVID-19 pushing more people to buy online than ever before, the potential bounty is larger than ever.
“They’re always a problem around Christmas,” Combs said.
The cameras can also catch theft of items from vehicles – or the theft of the vehicle itself. Lexington police said there were 1,760 thefts from vehicles from January to December this year. There were 900 stolen vehicles in that same time frame. Leaving cars unlocked – either in front of a residence or in another public area – can make thefts significantly easier for perpetrators, police said.
Does COVID-19 make it tougher to identify suspects?
While the coronavirus pandemic may lead to more loot to steal, an unintended consequence of the virus has complicated surveillance video. The commonality of masks has made it tougher to use residential cameras to get a look at suspects.
“A lot of people are wearing masks, and masks don’t really draw attention now,” Combs said. “If kids are walking down the street wearing masks and hoodies, that covers up a lot.”
But it’s also possible that the pandemic has contributed to a reduction in those crimes as well. There have been fewer daytime burglaries this year than in the past, Combs said.
Holiday theft convinced a Lexington family to get cameras
A thief put a damper on the Hesters’ family Christmas one year when they swiped gifts from the doorstep.
“I had ordered these Ugg boots and L.L. Bean boots that were hard to get, and they were all stolen off of our front porch,” said Rebecca Hester, a Lexington resident. “After that, we were like, ‘OK, that’s not happening again.’”
Hester said someone also broke into her car before the family got a security system. Now they can get alerts from their doorbell camera when anyone is identified in their driveway or comes up to their front door.
“We’ll always have it from this point on,” she said.
Ed Gonzalez, a resident in the Belleau Wood neighborhood who owns a commercial cleaning company, got security cameras to protect his equipment.
“We get a lot of small robberies around the block,” Gonzalez said. “Doors left open on cars and stuff like that.”
The cameras serve other purposes too — the feed caught people stealing an inflatable Santa out of the Gonzalez’s front yard, though it wasn’t possible to tell who the thieves were, Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez hasn’t had any incidents that have caused him to call the police to investigate. He said he’s still “very happy” having the cameras because he feels they keep his family, including his 3-year-old child, safe.