Liars Caught In The Act Thanks To Security Cameras

By: John Schmon

I got a call from my employee this morning saying that she couldn't open the door to my business, that lock had been messed with, and that I needed to call the police. I usually arrive early afternoon and my employee is responsible for opening up in the morning. It was disturbing to say the least, so I dropped what I would normally do in the morning and headed over to the office to see what was going on. When I got there the lock would not turn, someone had definitely messed with it. I called the sheriff's office and they sent an officer over. The officer also felt that someone had messed with the lock, and using a screwdriver he was able to pry the door open. I filed a report of attempted robbery with the police, and they left. Since I had a security camera system installed, I could go see what the security cameras recorded and try to pin down exactly what happened.

The results were both surprising and disappointing. Initially I believed my employee's story that someone had come during the night and tried to break in. I reviewed footage from the time we left the previous night until the time my employee came in the morning. First pass through the footage, couldn't find anything. I was sure something had happened so I reviewed the footage again, trying to be more careful. Again came up empty. How was this possible?

Then I decided to look at what happened after my employee arrived. This is where it got interesting. My employee who had claimed that the lock was broken when he got there quickly unlocked the door and when right in, according to the footage. What was going on? Didn't seem to make any sense. I continued to review the footage, and he went in and out several times, with no problems. About an hour later, I could see that he tried to open the door, but it wouldn't open. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera inside pointed at the door so I don't know what happened inside. My outdoor camera that was pointed towards the door caught the knob turning so I know he was trying to get out. I am now kicking myself for cheaping out and not getting an indoor camera pointing at the door. I can see him reappearing outside a short time later, so it seems that he must've gone through the back door to get out. Really bizarre.

I confronted the employee saying I knew the door lock wasn't broken when he arrived in the morning. At first he denied it. But then I showed him the footage from my system. At first dead silence, but then he started to come clean. He had apparently turned the lock too hard when he initially opened the door first the first time. He had tried to fix it from the inside, but somehow that made things worse and after that the door would no longer open.

Needless to say I fired this individual. Why he would lie about that and not just come clean was beyond me, I mean I would've understood, things like that happen sometimes. I really wish I had a camera inside that could've recorded what happened, something still doesn't add up. Moral of the story, get yourself a security camera system and make sure you have enough surveillance cameras to cover everything, you never know what's going to happen. Without those cameras I never would've caught his deception, and unfortunately I may never know the full truth due the lack of a camera on the other side of the door. I guess when it comes to surveillance systems best to spend the money to do it right.