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Cameras become hot tool for police

Growth in video surveillance helps merchants monitor stores, capturing images for prosecutors

Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Rachael Golden⁄The Gazette Security guard Raymond Njong monitors Lakeforest mall’s surveillance video in Gaithersburg. Click here to enlarge this photo Store video via Montgomery County Police Montgomery County Police released this photo, from a store surveillance camera, of a man they say robbed a Gaithersburg drug store last weekend.

County police say Darryl Nelson Riley swiped a credit card from a colleague Dec. 28 and then used it the same day to shop at a Target store in Gaithersburg, the same one where security guards say they caught him shoplifting Jan. 17, when he was arrested.

But while apparently no one had seen him using the stolen card three weeks earlier, police had enough evidence to charge him in both cases, courtesy of the camera that they say recorded him in the act in late December.

The case illustrates that reliance by private businesses and police on electronic surveillance has grown in recent years, experts say.

The need for businesses to guard inventories and for police to aid prosecutors with stronger evidence has also led to improvements in technology that allow cameras to watch more closely and remember more of what they see people do on private property, retail and law enforcement experts say.

‘‘They’ve upgraded their systems,” said David Hill, a county police detective who alone comprises the department’s retail theft unit. ‘‘You can store the video for a longer time so you’re not replacing tapes every day or every 12 hours. It’s being stored internally.”

Minneapolis, Minn.-based Target Corp., with nearly 1,400 stores in 47 states, including 30 in Maryland, did not respond to requests for comment on whether they have outfitted more stores with more state-of-the-art cameras in recent years.

But others say the number of stores that have made such investments has grown with the sophistication of cameras, which have made them more attractive to stores and police.

Montgomery County Police post selected videos, from surveillance cameras, on their Web site.

‘‘I would say it’s grown tremendously with the advent of digital,” said Tom Saquella, president of the Maryland Retailers Association, a statewide trade group. They have ‘‘much greater capacity and flexibility than they ever had before.”

The technology exists in other high-traffic businesses, including malls and even drug stores.

Police on Tuesday released a clip of store surveillance video showing a man who they say robbed the Ambulatory Care Pharmacy, at 9715 Medical Center Drive in Gaithersburg, on Saturday.

The man—seen in two photographs released by authorities—fled in an unknown direction after stealing painkillers and threatening to shoot employees, police say.

He wore a gray baseball cap with a black bill that had a logo on the front, as well as a brown-cloth, hooded, waist-length jacket, black gloves and work boots.

Police hope to use the surveillance to identify him, much as they did Riley.

It is this kind of assistance that has led other businesses to invest in surveillance technology.

Lakeforest mall, home to a slew of retailers and department stores such as Hecht’s and Sears, installed technology a few years ago allowing them ‘‘to cover the entire property with cameras,” said Marion Julier, the general manager of the Gaithersburg mall.

‘‘We didn’t always have cameras,” Julier said. ‘‘We installed cameras a few years back, before 9⁄11.”

Stores inside the mall are responsible for their own security, but Julier, who said security rules precluded her detailing how many cameras the mall has, said all public areas are covered by cameras, which consist of both stationary units and those that can zoom and pan.

They are also digital, she added, and ‘‘two huge computers” store the images they record 24-hours-a-day.

Hill, an 11-year veteran who has specialized in retail theft for four years, called identity theft the country’s ‘‘fastest growing crime rate now” and said cameras are therefore growing more important as well as effective, with digital capabilities making it easier to find images needed as evidence.

The Target, at 25 Grand Corner Ave. in the Washingtonian Center, was the site of another robbery this year involving Lawrence Benjamin Threat, a Northern Virginia man accused of using stolen credit cards at several stores to purchase nearly $5,000 of products, according to police.

Hill handled the Threat and Riley cases and said they did not appear related because Threat had allegedly stolen a number of credit cards to make several purchases across a wide area, including several Virginia jurisdictions.

Riley, however, is accused of stealing one credit card from a woman he worked with at Dick’s Sporting Goods, near the Target store.

When police arrested Riley, they charged him with theft under $500, using another’s credit card and identity.

Hill said the surveillance video would make good evidence. ‘‘It makes our cases stronger,” he said.