Top Arrests of 2013: Number 3
The weirdness factor is definitely at play in top apprehension #3. From feigned innocence to sloshing toilets, something just wasn’t right here.
Kris, an operator in our Verification Center, helped the Snohomish County Sheriff capture a suspected portable toilet tipper on October 7 after receiving Secure Pacific motion viewer activations from a mixed use apartment/retail building under construction in Lynnwood, WA. She used video to verify the alarm and could see a male figure with a dark hooded sweatshirt and dark pants lurking around the premises. Kris dispatched the police. When she received the next viewer activation, she could see officers on one end of the site and the suspect on another. When she called the dispatch back, she learned that officers had detained the suspect after he hopped the fence and tried to flee.
With the suspect in custody, the Sheriff’s Deputy called to verify the sequence of alarms that Kris received. The suspect claimed innocence, saying that he only entered the site as a shortcut on his way home. Kris was able to confirm that the suspect had been on the site for at least ten minutes. She was asked if any of the video footage showed the suspect knocking down portable toilets – apparently, the officers found three damaged and tipped port-a-potties inside the fence. While none of our footage shows any potty-tipping, the suspect was the only person detected on the site that night when the damage would have been done. No tools or materials were reported stolen.