By Preston Sparks
The Augusta Chronicle
There’s an increasing chance a surveillance camera will catch your public expressions, and police say they’re taking even better pictures, which proves helpful when they need to make an arrest.
“We are beginning to see more and more commercial companies and stores switching to digital from analog because of the enhanced images digital provides,” said Columbia County sheriff’s Capt. Steve Morris.
The past 10 years have seen surveillance cameras become prevalent at area stores, Aiken County sheriff’s Investigator Viktoria Lagger said. She’s also seeing some switch to digital systems, which offer better pictures and allow information to be stored longer than on a VHS tape.
Despite the growing use of digital, police say, there are still some older systems out there that don’t provide quality images.
“Oftentimes we encounter systems operating with limited or minimum memory capabilities resulting in poor imagery,” Capt. Morris said. “As in most things, you get what you pay for.”
Still, police say any image gives them something to work with, and lately videos have helped in several cases.
Capt. Morris said one of the most recent in his county was the arrest of a man after an armed robbery last week at a Walgreens.
“In that case, images from the video were released to the media, and within a couple of hours, the suspect, Nathan Key, was positively identified,” he said.
An unsolved case Columbia County police hope video will shed light on is a theft by deception that occurred Jan. 7 at an Evans McDonald’s on Washington Road. A sheriff’s office report states that a man ordered food, handed a cashier a $100 bill and swiped the bill back without the worker noticing. The worker then handed the man $97.14 in change.
In Aiken County, Investigator Lagger said, videos helped in a Nov. 11 robbery at a Waffle House, where “they have excellent video,” and in a September robbery of a Regions Bank in Clearwater.
Aiken County police hope video will help them make an arrest in a Dec. 8 armed robbery at the Easy Stop convenience store on Belvedere Clearwater Road in North Augusta.
In Richmond County, sheriff’s Maj. Ken Autry said videos “have been extremely helpful to us.”
Investigators there have used videos to help solve burglaries and thefts. Currently, they’re hoping the public can help identify a person in a video taken during a theft of catalytic converters at Yohe Plumbing on Franke Industrial Drive in Augusta.
In that case, police say, the owner is offering a $1,500 reward.
Copyright 2009 The Augusta Chronicle