Robberies put focus on security cameras
June 27, 2004
Section: World;Nation
Page: 1A
Robberies put focus on security cameras
David Unze
Staff
St. Cloud Times Metro
Installing equipment isn’t enough, but it’s a start, experts say
By David Unze
ST. MARTIN - When a man claiming to have a gun demanded money last month at St. Martin National Bank, the teller wasn’t the only one watching.
Within a day, images captured by one of two cameras behind the bank teller were published in the Times. The suspect’s mother was one of two people who recognized the man and called law enforcement. The suspect was arrested the next day.
It’s those successes that have some wondering why more convenience stores, banks and businesses aren’t capable of capturing the images that are so effective in helping solve robberies. It’s a question getting more attention as the St. Cloud area suffers through a rash of high-profile robberies, as many as seven in the past month.
“There is no doubt that when we receive good-quality surveillance photos that the odds are that we’ll solve that crime, no matter what the crime,” said Paul McCabe, senior special agent with the Minneapolis FBI.
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, in 2001 there were 10,150 bank robberies reported in the United States. A 2002 report by the FBI, “Bank Robbery in the United States,” said 58 percent of bank robberies committed in the U.S. in 2001 ended in an arrest. The only crime category with a higher percentage of arrests was murder, at 62 percent. In Minnesota, closer to 75 percent of bank robberies end in an arrest, McCabe said.
Cameras are part of the equation.
Cameras
“Does it help when you can put a surveillance photo in front of the subject and it’s a clear picture of him or her? Absolutely,” McCabe said.
But in only one of the seven recent robberies was law enforcement able to provide local media with a high-quality image of the suspect. Local prosecutors and police are looking at ways to get the message to businesses that knowledge about surveillance equipment and routine maintenance of that equipment can increase safety while deterring crime.
St. Martin
Joel Schmitz smiles when asked how the tiny bank in his tiny town helped solve a big crime. Schmitz, president of St. Martin National Bank, used two invoices to help explain.
One was for about $4,800, which bought the bank three video cameras, a VCR and installation of a system in 1993. When that VCR needed repair last year, Schmitz spent less than $2,000 to replace it with a digital video recorder that integrated into his existing system framework.
A 30 gigabyte hard drive in the basement of the bank retains the images captured by the lobby’s cameras. A small television nearby, with the DVR resting on top, is the only clue that every move in the lobby is being recorded.
“You’d think we spent a lot of money and that it’s an elaborate system,” he said when discussing the quality of the image that led to the arrest of 24-year-old Adam John Fuchs. “But you can see it’s not.”
Look 1st, buy later
Surveillance systems range widely in price, compatibility and quality, experts in the field say. What’s as important, they say, is to know what you’re buying, how best to set it up to meet your needs and how to maintain it.
“It’s very important that people actually see - before they purchase - exactly what they’re purchasing,” said Mark Williams of St. Cloud’s Tri Comm Security. “There are thousands of manufacturers out there and they’re all trying to sell you their products. But it all matters in what you see.”
His company brings customers into his office to show them how the equipment they want will work. He recommends annual checkups for businesses that have camera surveillance. Cameras sometimes need refocusing and realigning and they require regular maintenance, he said.
Business owners should make sure their systems are capable of storing the images their cameras capture, he said. He talked about companies that buy adequate equipment, then decrease the resolution in the pictures so they can store more images on a computer hard drive.
The decreased resolution will let them store more images, but those images are of lesser quality and might not be usable for identification. Convenience stores are further handicapped by the fact that it could be weeks from the commission of a crime such as check forgery before the store knows it’s taken a bad check.
They have to keep their images or tapes for a longer period of time than banks, which usually know much more quickly that someone has taken money from them, said Matt Larson, loss prevention director for Coborn’s.
The system at Coborn’s has more than 3 terabytes of memory and allows him to monitor several different stores from a laptop in one location. While digital equipment is the wave of the future, it remains an immature technology, he said. There is analog equipment that can capture images of the same quality as digital, he said, and costs less.
Balancing act
There are no mandates for what stores and banks must do about surveillance. The Bank Protection Act requires banks to adopt appropriate procedures to guard against robberies, but it’s up to each bank to decide how to do that, said John Hall, spokesman for the American Banker’s Association.
“The number-one priority for banks is the safety of its employees and the customers, and that won’t change,” Hall said. “But banks always need to balance convenience and security.”
Maintaining that balance - rather than making a decision based solely on cost - was important, Schmitz said.
“We didn’t look at the money end of it as much as making sure our employees and customers are safe,” he said. “The bank has to portray that image of safety.”
Williams said eight-camera systems are the average these days for the stores he services. Each camera costs about $500, he said, and business owners can spend $5,000 to $8,000 on additional equipment.
Times photo by Kimm Anderson, kanderson@stcloudtimes.com
Matt Larson, Coborn’s director of loss prevention, looks over some of the company’s video surveillance and editing equipment Friday at Cash Wise Foods in Waite Park.
