I worked at a major outdoors retailer with a “gun library” of high-end firearms.
In one of our quarterly steel audits (where we pull all 10,000 guns put hands on them, verify the serials, etc) we discovered a $10,000 rifle was missing.
The thing is, the case it was in obscured the gun itself from the security cameras. It was behind like 6 other guns in a glass case any customer could item and pull the guns out to look at them (guns themselves were trigger-locked of course).
So we had to have the gun library manager sit there and watch 3 month’s of surveillance video of a specific case that was proclaimed opened 20 times an hour in a highly-trafficked area of the store. Because of all the activity, the video had to be watched in real time, and we were open 13 hours a day.
The manager ended up quitting over the boredom combined with stress.
Honestly, if your security system didn’t allow you to set motion alerts, that’s a bad system. Basically any modern system will allow you to set motion alerts. You can specify a section (or sections) of the screen that will create a flag in the footage when motion is detected.
My job’s parking garage had a car get broken into, and a musician’s (very expensive) instrument was stolen. We didn’t have a camera pointed directly at the car that was broken into, but we had cameras at every entrance and exit, and on the ramps leading between each floor. Management was expecting to scrub through literal hours of footage. Using some basic motion detection, I set it to flag any time someone came up or went down the specific ramps or stairs that led to the level the car was on. It ended up being like 45 cars.
Then I just did a quick timer, to see how long each person lingered on the floor. Like 40 of the cars came up the ramp from the lower level, then like 30 seconds later went up the next ramp to the next level. So it wasn’t them. Only like five of the cars actually didn’t go to the next level.
And out of those five cars, four had drivers/passengers seen on the stairwells leading back down to the ground floor; They had parked on the same level as the incident, and went downstairs.
Only one car lingered on the same level for about 2 minutes, then quickly left again. At the exit, there was a camera on the gate which pointed into the cars. We got crystal clear footage of the driver, (someone who the musician knew) and the instrument case was very obviously sitting in the passenger seat.
The entire search (it was like 3 days of footage) took like 10 minutes total, simply by being able to whittle down when people were coming and going.
Man, as someone who worked surveillance for years, I can’t believe that anyone would have a hard time with this.
It was so, so, so, so easy to find when something vanished.
Now, did so and so walk in the building? Yeah, kiss my ass. Not happening.
I worked at a major outdoors retailer with a “gun library” of high-end firearms.
In one of our quarterly steel audits (where we pull all 10,000 guns put hands on them, verify the serials, etc) we discovered a $10,000 rifle was missing.
The thing is, the case it was in obscured the gun itself from the security cameras. It was behind like 6 other guns in a glass case any customer could item and pull the guns out to look at them (guns themselves were trigger-locked of course).
So we had to have the gun library manager sit there and watch 3 month’s of surveillance video of a specific case that was proclaimed opened 20 times an hour in a highly-trafficked area of the store. Because of all the activity, the video had to be watched in real time, and we were open 13 hours a day.
The manager ended up quitting over the boredom combined with stress.
Honestly, if your security system didn’t allow you to set motion alerts, that’s a bad system. Basically any modern system will allow you to set motion alerts. You can specify a section (or sections) of the screen that will create a flag in the footage when motion is detected.
My job’s parking garage had a car get broken into, and a musician’s (very expensive) instrument was stolen. We didn’t have a camera pointed directly at the car that was broken into, but we had cameras at every entrance and exit, and on the ramps leading between each floor. Management was expecting to scrub through literal hours of footage. Using some basic motion detection, I set it to flag any time someone came up or went down the specific ramps or stairs that led to the level the car was on. It ended up being like 45 cars.
Then I just did a quick timer, to see how long each person lingered on the floor. Like 40 of the cars came up the ramp from the lower level, then like 30 seconds later went up the next ramp to the next level. So it wasn’t them. Only like five of the cars actually didn’t go to the next level.
And out of those five cars, four had drivers/passengers seen on the stairwells leading back down to the ground floor; They had parked on the same level as the incident, and went downstairs.
Only one car lingered on the same level for about 2 minutes, then quickly left again. At the exit, there was a camera on the gate which pointed into the cars. We got crystal clear footage of the driver, (someone who the musician knew) and the instrument case was very obviously sitting in the passenger seat.
The entire search (it was like 3 days of footage) took like 10 minutes total, simply by being able to whittle down when people were coming and going.
It was a high-traffic area of a retail store. Motion alert is useless.
Oh god, yeah I’d be out. I would not do that.
Watching surveillance is truly like watching paint dry. Realtime? Yeah, just shoot me.
The only time I ever struggled was when cash went missing and I had to watch sale for sale. Even then, I could fast forward.
I always went for voids and “nosales” first. Nine times out of ten that’s where I’d find the theft. More clever thieves made my life hell though.
Did they ever find the gun?
No.