burglar

CaughtOnCamera: Burglar With Sledgehammer

SAN ANTONIO – A South Side homeowner’s video surveillance cameras were rolling earlier this month when a burglar used a sledgehammer to break into his home in broad daylight. The crime happened around 11:30 a.m. on Feb. 11, near Loop 410 and Roosevelt Avenue. The burglar used brute force to make entry into Amadeo Patterson’s home. "He uses a sledge hammer and within seven or eight seconds he’s inside the house," Patterson said. Patterson’s eight video cameras were rolling as the burglar grabbed whatever he could get his hands on. "He took a compound bow, two laptops, a Samsung touch-screen device, a whole bunch of jewelry and just a whole bunch of little stuff like that," Patterson said. Patterson has lived in the home since he was 8-years-old and this was 14th time he had been burglarized. Weeks before the most recent break-in, Patterson said another person got in through a window when the burglar bars were removed as the house was being painted.  "They came through our bedroom window and broke out the window," Patterson said. "They weren’t able to get in because of our headboard so I guess since he couldn’t get in he took our push mower instead." Fed up with the crime Patterson installed the surveillance cameras, but even they didn’t scare off the mid-day burglar. "He’s looking at the cameras he knows they’re there but apparently he don’t give a crap," Patterson said. "Unbelievable." Patterson said his neighbors have also been targeted. He’s now […]

CaughtOnCamera: Would-Be-Burglar Caught On Tape

Home surveillance footage quickly leads to arrest After her Woburn, Massachusetts home was broken into for the second time in five years, Jacqueline Duffy had a security system with a video camera installed. She pointed the camera at the window that had been used on the previous break-in. To her surprise, when she came home on Friday night her security alarm was activated. She went to her monitor, played back the video and watched in horror as a man squeezed himself through the window beside her air conditioning unit. “Watching the footage brought out a flood of different emotions,” Duffy admits. “I was upset that someone would invade our home, relieved that the security system worked and thought it was a bit funny the way he squeezed in. I have no idea who the man is, nor do I want to ‘meet’ him again.” When the system alarm went off, the burglar was startled and ran from the home without taking anything. Duffy then called the police. The Woburn Police took a screenshot of the burglar and ran it through a statewide database. Lynn Police quickly recognized the man as Charles Derochemont, 35, of 1A MacArthur Circle, Peabody, Massachusetts. When questioned, he promptly confessed to climbing through the window citing a variety of “personal issues” as the reason. Duffy uploaded the video to YouTube to show the dangers of using a window mounted air conditioner and the advantages of home security systems. Titled “Busted Burglar” the 59-second clip has […]