The eye in the sky catches it all and most of the time it's pretty boring. Except when it's not. When it's not, it can be pretty amazing and these security guards want to tell you all about how crazy it can get!
(Content Edited For Clarity)
The Player
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“I used to work security in the dorms. I wasn’t watching cameras, I was actually walking the dorms most of the time, but I found the same male student hooking up in the same trash room, literally a room with a bunch of big trash cans, on six separate occasions with four different girls, one girl did it three times!
Also for this job, we had to wear body cams and I unknowingly turned mine on and forgot about it for my entire shift, so a dispatch person had to watch something like five hours of me aimlessly wandering around a building and occasionally playing on my phone. Needless to say, I got my butt chewed out on my next shift.”
Hiding A Hole
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“I used to work security night shift in a 34-floor hotel. While doing my rounds, I walked by the gym to see a huge hole in the wall (we’re talking 1×1.5m), with one of our potted ferns which had been dragged in front to pathetically try to cover it.
After reviewing video footage, I find this 300-pound man running on the treadmill. The man has probably never used one in his life and seemed to be struggling with the controls. He was running faster and faster and eventually couldn’t keep up. He went flying off, rammed into the wall and stayed down for at least five minutes.
He eventually got up, ‘covered up’ the hole with the fern, and walked out.”
The Cows Are Watching Us!
“I am not in physical security, but one place I worked at was a hidden bunker in the middle of nowhere. The car park looked like it was just a random paved area in the middle of fields hidden down a tiny country lane as the entrances couldn’t be seen easily. We had camera’s watching the outside and one weekend a bunch of expensive cars pulled up people got out and started filming an adult movie then just drove off.
But the weirdest thing was that we noticed the cows in the field next door ALWAYS had at least one cow watching the entrance. They took turns, one cow would always start watching the door before another would look away to start eating. We got a little obsessive about trying to find any footage where there wasn’t a cow staring at the door and could never find any.”
He Should Have Been Arrested
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“I worked in a well-known discount retailer a few years ago and was friendly with the store detectives. One day, they called me into their camera room to show me some footage they got over the weekend.
Several overhead views of a middle-aged man lingering behind various young women, looking all around, waiting for his window, then bending down quickly to sniff their behinds. He was slick, none of them seemed to notice this guy crouched right behind them with his face just a couple inches from their butt.
They got him on camera doing this like four or five times before they tracked him down and told him to leave the store.”
The Ladies Love The Camera
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“I used to work night security summers at this recreational campground. We had tent sites and RV hookups, but also cabins (ranging from simple to top of the line with their own hot tubs), multiple pools, tennis courts, miniature golf, the work. It was ‘camping’ for people that didn’t want to go camping basically.
One night, a group of young women in their 20s or so (turned out later it was a bachelorette party) approached the back gate cameras almost in a military-style formation. They turned and all six flashed their chests at the cameras. The incident became known as the ‘Twelve Girl Salute.'”
A Horror Show
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“I used to work in the control room at a county jail about ten years ago. It was our job to control all the automated doors and the security cameras in the facility. This included following officers with the cameras during wellness checks every fifteen minutes through our special housing, which involved checking each individual cell’s camera.
One day, we were following the officer on the first check after lunch was handed out. We started checking every cell’s camera, a lot of naked guys eating sandwiches, but nothing unusual. Until we got to about the sixth or seventh cell.
The first thing I see when the feed comes up is blood. There’s blood everywhere. The bed, the sink, the toilet, the floor, the walls. It’s on everything. But the guy was amazingly still on his feet and screaming at the officer when we enabled the intercom. He’s screaming, ‘I don’t need it. I’ll never need it again so just take it!’ And throws something at the door.
His junk. He threw his junk.
He broke his lunch tray and used one of the pieces to cut his junk off. Because, as he saw it, he was never going to need it again because he was going to be sentenced to prison.
I don’t even remember what his charges were, but I remember that he was only looking at about two years, max.”
It’s THAT Kind Of Show
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“My friend had to monitor the cameras for our university library, mostly the late night hours where the library was officially closed, but access was available to most students.
Hook-ups. Everywhere.
Like, we were walking through one of the loft areas and she was pointing out places she’d watched people have hook up, and it just made me want to never step foot in the library again. Nowhere was safe.”
The Mad Pooper
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“Around 2003, I was working at Sam’s Club in loss prevention. One day, while watching the tapes, I saw an old man uncomfortably approach the tire mounting area. He proceeded to drop his pants and sit on a stack of tires about three high. Then he got up and walked away a few minutes later. Upon inspection, we discovered that he pooped on the stack of tires. Of course, we knew before we saw it because it stank very bad.”
The Sniffer
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“So I worked at a halfway house. During this job, I had to watch 22 different cameras. I would work the evening and sometimes when my coworkers couldn’t work, I had to work a double. In this instance, it was 3 am and it is noticeable when someone is walking around as no one is up during that time (well, the people up are up to no good)
This one man, he was older in age, closer to 65, came out of his room. As soon as he stepped out, I called my coworker over so he could see what I was seeing. This 65-year-old man was only wearing an undershirt with the sides cut off. And that’s all. Luckily it was long enough to cover his privates. He also had long hair and had it in pigtails. This man a former biker for a big gang and a self-proclaimed manly man is walking around like a woman and pulling down his shirt like it’s a dress.
But that’s not all folks.
He went to the laundry room opened the dryers. He started sniffing someone’s underwear (I saw the other resident place it in there) and proceeded to try them on. He repeated this process maybe 6-7 times with different people’s underwear. Finally, he chose which one he wanted and started hopping like a rabbit to his room.
The next day, he acted normal, but I and my coworker kept calling him ‘Hopper.'”
Panty Dropper
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“A women I know went to a casino about two hours after they opened on a weekday to get tickets for a show. As she was walking by the security desk, two women behind it were laughing hysterically. She knew one of the women and asked what was so funny. Turns out a couple minutes earlier, they had found a pair of women’s underwear. Not too strange, but that early on a weekday in the middle of the main walkway, plus the fact they were big old ‘granny panties’ got them curious so they were replaying the security tape. Sure enough, a little old lady in a dress with a walker was just walking along, when her underwear started to fall. Ever step they fell a little more, till they hit the floor. She stepped out of them and just kept going.”
The Smart And The Very, Very Dumb
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“I cover 13 buildings, all watched by a camera. All the normal bizarre behavior expected in a socially and economically depressed area aided by a variety of extracurricular substances and a nearby university, but the two things that blow my kind are criminals returning to the scene of a crime and the lack of any substantial brainpower.
An old school bus was in a church parking lot. Three kids decided to light it on fire. Not only did we catch them walking by the bus, returning, lighting it on fire, and then returning again to watch the fire department and police deal with the mess, they were also caught on security cams at the corner mart up the street buying a lighter.
We had a generator stolen out of a storage unit behind a shelter. Never mind the guys left a trail in the snow from the storage unit to the house they took it to a few blocks away. One guy walked up to a cam (about 12 feet off the ground) and, WHILE LOOKING DIRECTLY INTO THE CAM, tried to rub some snow on it to blur the field of vision. Good idea, I thought, but perhaps next time hide your face.
I do admit we did run into some smarter criminals. Not only did they bust into the only vacant house (affordable housing my agency maintains/rents) in a row, they cleaned out everything: pipes, fixtures, appliances, etc they also took the entire DVR security system. So – no system, no backup, no video proof of the event. Good on ya’ criminals. You get this round.”
RJ’s Date Turned Everyone Off Of Mayonnaise
“Several years ago, I worked in a hospital that had a secure wing for mentally ill/at-risk patients. It had cameras all over the hall and in every room. It was also a co-ed ward, which was a TERRIBLE IDEA.
We had one guy, let’s call him RJ, who had been there a while and was missing certain things he was used to getting from his lady friend on the regular.
RJ was also a paranoid schizophrenic and would hallucinate famous people following/talking to him.
On this particular day, Halle Berry was following him around and they were going to get married as soon as he was discharged. Lots of ‘My girl Halle is hongry. Can I get an extra sammich?’ and ‘Wow, Halle, you so fine girl,’ directed to the wall.
Well, it’s dinner time and RJ gets his plate and goes to his room and comes back out a second later and asks the nurse for mayonnaise. Whatever, she gives him mayonnaise.
RJ goes back to his room, takes the ham from his sandwich, opens the mayonnaise, spreads is on one side of meat and, please forgive me for this, beats his meat with it.
So we pop a sticky note on the screen for modesty and keep giving out food. Then we hear it.
‘HALLE! OooOOOOoooooo HALLE. OH GIRL. YES. GET IT. YOU LIKE THAT, DON’T YOU? THAT’S MY HALLE. I LOVE YOU BAY-BAAAAAAAAAAAY! GGUUUUUUUUGH!’
We all turn and look at the monitor just in time for RJ to do this Exorcist-esque arch right as he finished, which rendered the strategically placed sticky note useless.
Then he got up, and RJ was a tall dude, but he got up and smeared a handful of whatever he had on his hand directly on the camera and yelled, ‘Y’ALL DON’T GET TO SEE ME WITH MY GIRL UNLESS YALL PAY!’
At which point he walked out of his room and dropped the half-empty mayonnaise packet on the service window at the nurse’s station and said, ‘Y’all can give the rest to somebody else.'”
Wipeout
“I was on the opposite end of this. I worked IT at a fairly big company. I used a scooter to move around the tile floor building while fixing things from room to room. Well one day, most of the employees were in a big meeting room meeting about something. I just so happened to need to go into that room to restart a switch. Now I was really good at drifting corners on said scooter and had made a habit of doing this around corners (yeah yeah, I know). Well unbeknownst to me, not only were they having a meeting in said room, there was also water spilled right in front of the room. So right as I drifted around the corner, I hit the water and of course lost control and absolutely SLAMMED into a metal industrial fan they had at the entrance. It was freaking loud and of course, I caused the whole meeting to stop mid whatever they were talking about. The head presenter saw the whole thing and was doubled over from laughing. Most everyone else was just confused.
Cue two weeks later, I get asked to come help set up something which ‘broke right during our meeting.’ I show up to the same room with the same people. As soon as I walk in, the CEO/owner pops open the video footage on the projector for everyone to see. I’m not gonna lie, it was pretty darn funny.”
That Naked Dude
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“I work weekends at a hospital for a security company with hundreds of cameras all over the hospital. I frequently am assigned to be the officer who watches cameras in the rooms of patients under observation (threats to self or nursing staff) and have access to the files in our archives.
The most bizarre thing I have ever seen (in the archives) is one of the patients under observation escaping security and making it all the way to his car—completely naked.
This guy was admitted for reasons that I have only heard second-hand. He was young, maybe mid-twenties, and looked normal compared to most of the psychiatric patients that come into the ER. Most likely delusional and a danger to himself, but the key to his story was that he came to the hospital for help with his problems, but he did not know that by telling us that he was thinking of killing himself, that a doctor would order him under observation and he would be unable to leave the hospital whenever he wished. Now, the process of getting care for mental health issues in an emergency room can take hours because the specialized staff is off-site, and only one is present on campus at any given time. He decided that he could not wait and that coming to the ER was a mistake, so he decided to escape.
However, this particular patient was smarter than your average case. He took note of the cameras, the angles of each one, and watched the other patients nearby intently as they were escorted by security to a completely stripped, special bathroom. As the security guard in the small room that joined with his and a few other patients’ rooms opened a door to the adjacent hall, where the bathroom was located, the guard would immediately turn his or her attention to the other patients. Next to the bathroom was another observation room, but that guard was usually seated. Both of these officers, he seemed to gather from the smirk on his face, were not allowed, under any circumstance, to leave their post unless removed. Anyone running from this officer would have a huge head start before a free officer could be summoned over the radio. All he had to do was get out of reach of the nearest one, and they would not be able to follow. There was one problem. The bathroom door opened up toward the seated guard in the hallway. Apparently, he had devised a solution to this problem and asked the first guard to use the bathroom. Everything goes as planned, from his point of view. Guard #1 opens the door, lets him walk into the hall and then goes back to the other patients. Guard #2 remains seated and watches to make sure he actually goes in.
He was in the bathroom for almost ten minutes, and the guard in the hall noticed but doesn’t change anything about his routine. While the patient was in the bathroom (no camera), he stripped completely naked and lubed up his entire body in a thick layer of handsoap and water. The now fully lubricated patient, I imagine, took a deep breath and flung open the door as hard as he could. The camera files show the seated guard almost falling back out of his rolling chair in surprise. He hadn’t even come to terms with the fact that he was going to have to grab a curiously shiny naked man when the patient made five long strides down the hall at full speed and turned the corner toward the waiting room. The patients in the waiting room just froze in shock, and the guards by the entrance/exit started running toward him. Half a dozen nurses and half a dozen security guards grabbed at him with gloved hands but every single one of them came up with nothing. None of them could get in front of him, and any attempt to grab the lubed up streaker failed. Some guards were holding their heads, mouthing ‘what the heck’ and others were in full sprint after him. He made it in under 30 seconds out of the hospital and out to the sidewalk that leads to the parking garage. He made it all the way to his car, but no further.
No keys.”
Parking Lot Shenanigans
“This is at our backup data center in the suburbs in a commercial office park – dead quiet no one is ever there. Cops mostly chill in the parking lot to sleep basically.
During lunch, this one guy parks in the back and start eating his lunch. Then his door opens, he runs in back of the truck, runs back to the door to grab the bag from his lunch, drops his pants, and lets loose a torrent of diarrhea – it just explodes – in the middle of the parking lot. There was no way those pants remained unscathed.
Then he wipes with his lunch bag. What lunch did you have you might ask? It was from Portillo’s. Personally, I love Portillo’s. That bag did not deserve that fate it was given. This was amazing video and captivated the entire IT staff of like 50 for at least an hour of reruns.
Another time, we hired a cleaning service to clean that same office. Dude shows up in a really crappy car, like 18 years old, and parks in back. He then pulls out a giant…uh…water filtration device usually used to smoke pot… and goes to town for about 10 minutes. We’re watching this and laughing and we call up our man on site and when this kid comes inside to ‘work.’ We ask our employee, ‘Hey, what’s he smell like?’
So we called up the firm that sent him, its a small business, our guy knows the owner actually. So we’re listening to this one side of the conversation – it goes like this:
‘Hey Bob, so the cleaning guy showed up…Yeah, he’s here. Hey, let me ask you something. Do you know this guy really well? …Oh. He’s your son? Hmmm. Well, this is awkward.'”