We'll Bring the Handcuffs!
Arrest 106
by Director Dunn on 04/18/16
A construction project in a sketchy neighborhood contacted out Strategic Partners, Ontel Security Services Inc., to protect the project. We installed several wireless cameras that would alert us in real time to any activity.
Multiple activations from cameras watching brand new rooftop air conditioners showed a male subject stealing the cameras themselves!
As most Bad Guys do when they think there are cameras, he was concealing his face with a ball cap and covering his tattoo with a T-shirt while stealing these cameras.
Because the cameras are completely wireless, it's likely he assumed they were dummy cameras. He took them to his house for more careful examination.
Unfortunately for him, while he was examining the camera he was also giving us a clear video of his face and a unique tattoo on his arm, now visible because he had removed his shirt.
Responding patrolmen were able to identify him walking near the project. He admitted to being on camera but not to stealing them.
He was arrested for trespassing and grand theft and turned over to Ceres Police.
Silly Bad Guys, Selfies are for Good Guys!
Fourth Anniversary of First Arrest!
by Director Dunn on 04/09/16
10 April 2016
Four years ago our Strategic Partner, Ontel Security Services, Inc., had been hired to secure a bank owned apartment complex in Modesto. The client had a limited budget and limited options because there were no utilities.
Thanks to our strategic partnership, Ontel was able to offer the client an option to paying for a full time on-site guard. At various places around the property we hid battery powered cameras that would send videos of activity directly to the computers in Ontel's patrol vehicles. This offered the client affordable protection that vandals were already proving necessary by stealing copper plumbing and appliances inside the property.
In the rain and under the cover of darkness to avoid the neighbors being able to watch us install the cameras we set the trap... and waited for it to catch someone.
When it did, Ontel Patrolmen quickly arrived and made the arrest- much to the surprise of arrest #1! He had no idea he'd walked right past several cameras or that we'd known he was there long before he'd decided which apartment he was going to break into.
For us, this was our first success with this new solution. As it turned out, it would be the first of many!
On the third anniversary of the first arrest, three juveniles who were casing a client's property that was sitting empty on the real estate market were arrested- arrests 66, 67 and 68.
As we mark the fourth anniversary of our first arrest, we've caused or made arrests of over one hundred criminals, with a ratio of clients to arrests that exceeds the rest of the industry by an incredible margin. We're expanding into new technology and new theaters of operation.
This anniversary seems a fitting time to thank, with humility, our Strategic Partners. The only greater reward than working with them has been the satisfaction of seeing those who would harm our clients in uncomfortable handcuffs, wondering what just happened!
We created a video back then, touting our early success
Press Release
by Director Dunn on 04/07/16
CRIMINALS FACE UNFAIR TACTICS, REGRET
POOR DECISIONS
Local burglar alarm company uses sneaky cameras and private security to catch criminals
Making Arrests
Art Dunn Alarm Company reports that it has now passed the
milestone of the hundredth arrest of a criminal detected by one of their
systems. The hundredth arrest was made in
To be counted as an arrest, the subjects were either placed under citizen’s arrest by private security or at least detained by law enforcement. Contacts that resulted in warnings or “near misses” were uncounted but certainly exceeded the number of arrests.
Three arrests in one evening or one hundred over four years
seems insignificant until compared to the documented results in large cities
such as San Jose, who reported on the San Jose Police Department’s website “…In
2010, the Department responded to 12,450 alarm calls throughout the City… Only
two arrests resulted from these alarm calls…”
Sneaky Silent Cameras
In what some criminals may consider unfair tactics, most of these arrests were made in places where criminals wouldn’t expect their activities to be detected and with nothing but pangs of conscience to warn them of consequences. “We are the specialists in outdoor and empty property detection” said Director Art Dunn, founder of the eponymous alarm company. “These arrests prove the value of our combination of detection and response”.
Dunn uses video cameras that send alerts and videos directly to the computers in patrol vehicles, allowing the responding patrolman to review the videos of intruders themselves. “When you have an intruder or vandal on your property, the most important thing is getting someone out there quickly to catch them. Using these silent cameras we’re able to detect intruders while they’re still trying to decide how to get into the building, giving us that critical head start to catch them. They have no idea we’re coming to catch them, so they’re in no hurry to leave with our client’s property”.
Early Success
Using Videofied cameras that are completely battery powered and wirelessly connected to the internet via cell towers, Dunn formed a strategic partnership with Ontel in 2012 to offer their clients enhanced protection services. The first arrest in April was made at a bank owned property where the lack of utilities made any other technology impractical and the bad guys overconfident. These same cameras were deployed on school rooftops to address crushingly expensive vandalism of air conditioning equipment, in one instance ending a crime wave that cost one school district over one million dollars in damage at a single campus.
Ontel’s Chief David J. McCann remembers the first arrest at Alice N. Stroud Elementary of a would-be copper thief as the first significant arrest because “… it proved that this solution worked where nothing else would”. Similar results have been achieved at other schools, construction sites, rooftops and empty buildings. “We’re pleased that our relationship with Art Dunn Alarm Company allows us to offer enhanced services to our customers”.
New technology
Dunn now offers even more sophisticated cameras that go beyond simply detecting intruders. The new cameras, manufactured by CheckVideo, can detect a subject’s behavior. Last year this new technology allowed Ontel Patrolmen to arrest a vandal responsible for thousands of dollars worth of damage to windows at a downtown business. Without a hint of guilt over the sneaky installation, Dunn said “We put the cameras inside looking out through the windows and programmed them to alert us to anyone lingering in front of the building. A few nights after the installation we were alerted to a subject standing in front of the window tossing a rock from hand to hand before smashing it through a storefront window. After Ontel arrested him, the police couldn’t believe we’d caught the right guy until we showed them the video. He had no clue he was on camera and we’ve had no problems since that arrest!”
“We’re pleased that our product is getting results like these for one of our dealers” said Steve Currens, Director of Sales for CheckVideo. “Results like these prove that our video detection is a reliable technology that offers solutions at reasonable cost to the customer”
Private Response
Frustrated property owners are beginning to see the value of
private security that offers solutions by making arrests. Stevens Protection
Services’ Chief Stevens, who patrols the rural areas of northern
The Next Hundred
Looking to the future, Director Dunn is optimistic that the next hundred arrests won’t require another four years to attain. He points to the early releases, lax punishment and overburdened law enforcement as reasons for an increasing demand for private security solutions. The pain and cost of losses to theft and vandalism will drive consumers to private security, and Dunn says labor costs will drive most consumers to use technology like his. “It’s a proven formula for us that more cameras plus more bad guys equals more arrests. We will continue to live up to our motto ‘We’ll Bring the Handcuffs!’”
For more information
Art Dunn Alarm Company www.wecatchbadguys.com
Ontel Security Services Inc. www.ontelsecurity.com
Stevens Protection www.farmwatcher.net
CheckVideo www.checkvideo.com, scurrens@checkvideo.com
A Note From Director Dunn:
by Director Dunn on 08/02/15
