http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2005/08/26/webcam26.htm
תוקן על ידי - davka - 26/08/2005 19:14:47
Middletown – This week's contender for the title of World's Dumbest Criminal: the genius who allegedly broke into the same house for possibly the third time in a week – and looked right into a Web camera left there by the owner to catch him.
The smart person in this case: the Times Herald-Record's own night copy desk chief, Don Bruce, owner of both home and webcam, who watched the crime unfold live at his desk Wednesday night.
Most nights, life at the newsroom is pretty routine – edit the day's stories, eat some pizza, listen to the police scanner to make sure we didn't miss any heinous late-night crimes.
Occasionally, all hell breaks loose. Usually, that means something bad happened. Sometimes, though, it's a good thing.
And once in a blue moon, it's a really, really good thing.
Like Wednesday, for example.
That's when Bruce decided to get even. After his house in the Town of Wallkill was broken into twice in a week, Bruce figured drastic measures were in order.
So he set a trap. No, not a bear trap, or something out of Indiana Jones. A sneaky, devious, high-tech trap worthy of James Bond.
Bruce set up a webcam – a camera hooked up to the Internet, that he could view from any computer with an Internet connection – to keep watch on his domain.
And watch it did. About 9 p.m. Wednesday night, Bruce decided to take a quick peek through the camera while sitting at his desk here at the office.
And there he was, in all his glory: one dumb interloper, standing in Bruce's home office.
Bruce watched for a minute while the guy rummaged through his stuff, thoughtfully staying in view of the webcam.
The helpful fellow even took a moment to look right into the camera, giving Bruce a perfect, full-face mug shot. And another clear shot of the tattoo on the clueless dude's left arm.
Bruce called the cops. At first, the dispatcher was a little confused, Bruce said.
"She was surprised – she asked, 'How do you know this? How are you watching this?'" Bruce said.
Pretty soon, just about everyone in the newsroom was gathered around, watching the guy poke around in Bruce's home office, while Bruce fed information to a 911 dispatcher, who in turn passed it on to cops converging on his house from all over western Orange County.
It didn't take long for the cops to arrive on scene, in force.
By that time, the guy had already fled. Not that it did him much good.
Police officers scoured the woods behind Bruce's house looking for the guy. The mug shot Bruce printed out for them from the webcam surely helped.
In about 20 minutes, the cops had their man. They told Bruce the guy apparently lives right across the street, which would explain how he knew when Bruce wasn't home.
We couldn't wrangle the arrested guy's name, or what he was charged with, out of state police yesterday.
But Bruce, ever a modest, mellow kind of guy, took the whole thing in stride. He said the $50 he popped for the webcam was money well spent.
"This just proves the geeks shall inherit the earth," Bruce said.
The smart person in this case: the Times Herald-Record's own night copy desk chief, Don Bruce, owner of both home and webcam, who watched the crime unfold live at his desk Wednesday night.
Most nights, life at the newsroom is pretty routine – edit the day's stories, eat some pizza, listen to the police scanner to make sure we didn't miss any heinous late-night crimes.
Occasionally, all hell breaks loose. Usually, that means something bad happened. Sometimes, though, it's a good thing.
And once in a blue moon, it's a really, really good thing.
Like Wednesday, for example.
That's when Bruce decided to get even. After his house in the Town of Wallkill was broken into twice in a week, Bruce figured drastic measures were in order.
So he set a trap. No, not a bear trap, or something out of Indiana Jones. A sneaky, devious, high-tech trap worthy of James Bond.
Bruce set up a webcam – a camera hooked up to the Internet, that he could view from any computer with an Internet connection – to keep watch on his domain.
And watch it did. About 9 p.m. Wednesday night, Bruce decided to take a quick peek through the camera while sitting at his desk here at the office.
And there he was, in all his glory: one dumb interloper, standing in Bruce's home office.
Bruce watched for a minute while the guy rummaged through his stuff, thoughtfully staying in view of the webcam.
The helpful fellow even took a moment to look right into the camera, giving Bruce a perfect, full-face mug shot. And another clear shot of the tattoo on the clueless dude's left arm.
Bruce called the cops. At first, the dispatcher was a little confused, Bruce said.
"She was surprised – she asked, 'How do you know this? How are you watching this?'" Bruce said.
Pretty soon, just about everyone in the newsroom was gathered around, watching the guy poke around in Bruce's home office, while Bruce fed information to a 911 dispatcher, who in turn passed it on to cops converging on his house from all over western Orange County.
It didn't take long for the cops to arrive on scene, in force.
By that time, the guy had already fled. Not that it did him much good.
Police officers scoured the woods behind Bruce's house looking for the guy. The mug shot Bruce printed out for them from the webcam surely helped.
In about 20 minutes, the cops had their man. They told Bruce the guy apparently lives right across the street, which would explain how he knew when Bruce wasn't home.
We couldn't wrangle the arrested guy's name, or what he was charged with, out of state police yesterday.
But Bruce, ever a modest, mellow kind of guy, took the whole thing in stride. He said the $50 he popped for the webcam was money well spent.
"This just proves the geeks shall inherit the earth," Bruce said.
תוקן על ידי - davka - 26/08/2005 19:14:47