Without proper planning, it can be easy for criminals to be caught red handed committing
their crimes in full view of cameras.
But these criminals didn’t think their crimes through, and were swiftly arrested.
Number 5
With the high numbers of cameras around today, especially in places like hotel corridors,
it makes sense for a criminal about to commit a crime to try to hide their identity.
Some try to use complex disguises to hide themselves from cameras.
Christopher Badman decided to use a carrier bag when he committed his crime in September
2020.
The Marine Hotel was filled with guests coming to the south Wales town for the annual Elvis
Festival, and Badman believed they would be the perfect targets to rob.
He entered the hotel at about 3 in the morning, wearing a bag over his head.
The bag was good at obscuring his face from the security cameras, it also wasn’t the
easiest thing for him to see through, and cameras instead caught him stumbling down
corridors before breaking into rooms.
After breaking into one room, the guest inside woke up while Badman was trying to steal the
guest’s laptop.
Presumably Badman had taken off the bag once out of view of cameras to try to be more stealthy,
but when the victim woke, Badman rushed out of the room without putting the disguise back
on.
The cameras outside got a good image of Badman’s face as he decided against breaking into another
room and fled from the scene.
As he left the hotel, he tried to put his hood up to obscure his face again, but it
was too late.
After the robbery, detectives reviewed the CCTV footage and were able to identify Badman.
He was later arrested and sentenced to 16 months in prison.
Number 4
One of the dumbest crimes caught on camera occurred in May this year, when a woman climbed
into a zoo exhibit in El Paso, Texas.
After the incident, a video emerged online on the Instagram page of The Real Fit Fam
El Paso, with the caption “This is (unfortunately) real: A local woman crossed into the spider
monkey enclosure at the El Paso zoo today and fed them…
hot cheetos.”
The short video showed a young woman in a tank top and shorts sitting beneath the waterfall
of the open air exhibit.
To get there, she had had to climb over a fence, through bushes, and walk through a
four foot moat.
Two of the monkeys, named Libby and Sunday, approached the intruder, who offered something
to them.
When neither monkey takes what’s in her hand, she throws it behind her.
After having her fun, the intruder climbed back through the moat and was helped out of
the enclosure.
Unsurprisingly, the incident caused outrage online.
It was only after the video was posted that El Paso zoo learned of the incident, as the
zoo didn’t have security cameras in that area.
Friends of the woman in the video soon got into contact with the zoo and identified the
woman as 26-year-old Lucy Rae.
According to the zoo director, they had given him so much information he probably knew more
about her than he did his own daughter.
Rae immediately faced consequences for her action when she was fired from the law firm
where she’d worked as a paralegal.
She was also arrested by local police, as the zoo wanted to press trespassing charges
against her.
Not long after she became unemployed, another law firm hired her, hitting out at her previous
employer for firing Rae over “giving a treat to a monkey” and taking food away from Rae’s
young daughter.
Thankfully, zoo staff said Libby and Sunday weren’t harmed by the incident.
They don’t know whether or not the monkeys ate the unauthorised treat, as they were more
concerned with the stranger in their enclosure.
The monkeys are not used to human contact, and zoo staff said the incident may have undone
years of training.
They were also concerned Rae could have potentially passed COVID-19 to the animals, but luckily
that wasn’t the case.
Number 3
On August 4th, 2021, a man using the pseudonym “Jeff” returned to his parked car after
dark to find a woman he didn’t recognise trying to get it to start.
He started recording on his mobile phone as he confronted the woman.
She said her friend had told her she could use their car, and that she must have mistaken
Jeff’s car for theirs.
When Jeff confronted her, pointing out she was trying to break down his steering column,
she tried to leave the scene, but the woman had left personal belongings in the car and
wanted to get them.
Jeff continued to record as he denied the woman access to his car again, and told her
to call the police if she wanted them.
The woman left, and Jeff was left with her phone and credit cards and IDs belonging to
a variety of people.
It was clear this wasn’t the woman’s first act of robbery, and soon a whole host of crimes
were uncovered.
Jeff gained access to the woman’s phone with the help of her own fiance.
He discovered her name was Elizabeth Cooke, and had access to all her social media accounts.
He uploaded the video of Cooke trying to break into his car to her Facebook account, and
uncovered Facebook messages with other people, discussing other burglaries and crimes.
He copied the contents to the phone over, and handed it in to police as Cooke’s sister
had informed him the phone had been reported stolen.
After that, with guidance from the admin of a community Facebook page, Jeff began uploading
the contents of Cooke’s phone to her Facebook and YouTube accounts.
At first, his aim was to shame Cooke for her crimes, and to help victims be reunited with
their stolen property.
The IDs and credit cards that had been left in his vehicle were among the first to be
returned to their rightful owners.
But as Jeff continued to sort through the contents of the phone, he found something
much darker.
On January 1st 2021, Cooke had recorded a video talking about a man named Bobby Phillips,
who she claimed she’d met a few days earlier.
Bobby had recently been released from prison.
Cooke claimed it was for taking somebody’s life, but local newspapers could only find
records of more minor crimes like burglaries and traffic crimes.
Bobby passed away the day the video was taken.
Bobby had been living in the same house as Cooke since being released from prison.
On New Years Day, emergency responders were called to the scene where they found Bobby
with a weak pulse.
After trying to save his life, Cooke told them to stop.
He had given her power of attorney and she said he wouldn’t want to be resuscitated.
The coroner ruled the incident an accident, as he had a heart condition and took illegal
substances which exasperated it.
Jeff discovered photos of documents uploaded to the Cloud in the days before Bobby’s
passing which included his social security number and a will naming Cooke as the sole
benefactor.
The will had been changed days earlier.
Cooke was arrested for burglary and charges related to illegal substances.
Police are still investigating whether she had anything to do with Bobby Phillip’s
passing, or if the recent change to his will was a coincidence.
Number 2 Dash cams and CCTV cameras captured the terrifying
moment Richard Palmer opened fire at Tristan Samuels in a busy London street in August
2019.
Tristan and his friend had been at a club in Soho when his friend was attacked with
a bladed weapon.
The club closed and party-goers spilled into the narrow street, which was already extremely
busy with vehicles despite the late hour.
The fight only continued on the street, but Tristan and his friend tried to run away.
His friend collapsed and was helped by passers by.
Tristan continued to run and Palmer chased after him.
As they ran between slow moving cars, the chase was captured on dash cams.
Suddenly, Palmer dove out from behind a car and fired twice at his victim.
People screamed and ran away.
Palmer made his escape in a waiting car.
Both bullets hit Tristan, but he managed to take himself to hospital.
Despite the serious injuries, both he and his friend survived the attack.
The attack appeared to be premeditated.
The car Palmer had escaped from was the same one that had dropped him off earlier in the
night, and had apparently been waiting for him to make his escape.
Despite the planning that went into it, police had plenty of evidence and leads to follow,
in part due to the camera footage from the area.
Detectives found bullet casings they could use to identify the weapon Palmer had been
using.
They also got a good image of the car Palmer used to escape.
Police tracked Palmer’s movements in the days following the attack.
He had given the weapon to an associate, Bo Roberts, for disposal.
When police came down on Roberts’ home, they found a cache of illegal weapons and
substances worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
They eventually tracked down Roberts himself, hiding out at a hotel a friend had booked
for him.
All three men were charged with numerous substances and weapons related crimes, while Palmer was
charged with the attempt on Tristan’s life.
They will serve a total of more than 40 years in prison.
Sources: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/gunman-cctv-west-end-club-soho-opium-rupert-street-brawl-b929815.html https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/terrifying-moment-gunman-chases-victim-23919412#comments-wrapper
Number 1
An attempted hit on a rival business owner had already gone terribly wrong when Feroz
Suleman and his friends realised their crime had been caught on Suleman’s own CCTV cameras.
A 19-year-old student had been innocently walking down the street to buy groceries when
she was caught by a bullet intended for Suleman’s rival.
She sadly lost her life, and the entire incident was caught on camera.
The story started in 2019, when the owner of a store called Quickshine expanded his
business from just car washing to selling tyres.
Quickshine was next-door to Suleman’s own business, a tyre store called RI Tyres.
Suleman didn’t like the new competition.
The rivalry became violent at times, with a fire being set outside RI Tyres, and the
police called when the owner of Quickshine wouldn’t let workmen putting up an RI Tyres
sign come into his yard.
In May 2020, Suleman had decided to put an end to the competition once and for all.
He and a friend hired a hitman for £1500.
The plan was to take out the Quickshine owner outside his own store, where Suleman could
get a front row seat to the crime.
The car containing the criminal drove past the premises three times before the final,
fateful drive by.
At the same time, the law student had been sent out by her parents to buy groceries for
when they broke their fast later that day.
Her path took her past the two tyre shops.
As she went past, the hit man fired twice.
One bullet hit the window of the Quickshine store, while the other struck the girl in
the shoulder.
The Quickshine owner rushed to the girl’s aid and called 999, but there was nothing
that could be done and she lost her life.
For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to Suleman and his co-conspirators that the whole thing
would be captured on RI Tyres’ CCTV.
Police investigating the crime immediately requested to see the footage.
One of the co-conspirators sat with them as they reviewed the footage.
The images of the crime itself haven’t been released, but police did post footage from
the office itself, which showed one of the men react in shock when he realised what had
happened.
Eight people were charged and found guilty of crimes relating to the young girl’s passing
and the attempt on the Quickshine owner’s life, including the hit man, Suleman and those
that helped put the plan together.
Between them, they will serve more than 200 years
in prison.