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Friday, May 14, 2010

CCTV as the eyewitness

From WLKY.com: LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Video evidence was shown Thursday in the trial of a woman accused of setting fire to her St. Matthews business.

Investigators said Susan Lukjan used packaging materials to fuel the 2006 fire at her business, Campbell's Gourmet Cottage.

In surveillance video taken from cameras on Trinity High School, investigators said Lukjan's red Lincoln Navigator can be seen leaving her shop at 5:06 p.m. on August 19, 2006. Then, 13 minutes later, the video showed smoke coming from the store.

Prosecutors said Lukjan had motive to burn down her business because she was seriously in debt and wanted to collect the insurance money.

The defense is reserving their right to address the jury once the Commonwealth has concluded its case."

Just goes to show you how many cameras watch your every step.

Enjoy.

1 comment:

Doktor Jon said...

Interesting story Jim, which does somewhat underline a key factor which is often overlooked by the powers that be.

In the rush to deploy 'Public Space Surveillance' cameras, the automatic assumption is that these will provide maximum benefit in tackling serious organised crime, and terrorism related incidents.

Experience here in the UK suggests that it's more often than not the images sourced from privately owned, often low cost and invariably poor performance systems, which are most useful in helping to identify suspects or persons of interest.

In the week when Mayor Bloomberg left New York to visit London and get a taste of the brit experience, he'd be well advised to think carefully about how best to spend tax dollars on video surveillance, when it's often the less obvious and lower cost deployment of optimised passive imaging systems, that can best fulfill an efficient counter terrorism role.