Irritating stuff

[altivo]

Arrived at work this morning to three squad cars in the lot along with everyone else's. We were supposed to have a staff meeting. But someone broke into the building Sunday or overnight last night. They broke out a tiny 18-inch square window at the back of Local History and climbed in that way, apparently.

I'm convinced it was a former part time employee or someone who knew one, because they knew where to cut the power to the alarm system, and got to that within the 90 seconds before the alarm would have summoned police. They also removed the videotape from the security camera system and took it with them. Cash (bills only) was removed from the drawer at the desk. That's fine money mostly and was probably $50, hardly worth the trouble these days. They missed the larger cash drop in the director's office, but knew which one of my drawers to go through looking for MP3 players. They dumped it all out but apparently took nothing. Looking for iPods I bet, and there are none of those. They apparently intended to take a large LCD monitor, but didn't get out the door with it. It was on the floor just inside the back door. I'm guessing they went out and the door locked behind them, and they didn't want to climb in over the broken glass again.

Things actually taken: The cash mentioned above, two digital cameras worth about $300 each, and an LCD video projector that cost $2600 new. Oddly, no other computer stuff was taken, nor any of the valuable artwork or rare books. Given the small window used for entrance, the apparent inside knowledge, and the lack of awareness of items of real value, I suspect local teenagers. The police were thorough, took lots of photos and dusted for fingerprints in the obvious places, but I'll bet we never catch anyone.

In other sensational news, the local paper reports that one of our creepier library users has been arrested for possession of illegal child porn.

Comments

[woodychitwn.livejournal.com]

Wow... That really sucks... But you'd think with fingerprints they'd be able to track someone down. Time will tell, glad you didn't lose anything!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you don't expect that sort of stuff in a town this small. The alarm system is the big issue. Why do we have an expensive ADT system if they can get around it so easily? The answer, at least in part, seems to be that it wasn't expensive enough.

[woodychitwn.livejournal.com]

Well... Yeah...

But who'd have thunk that a LIBRARY needed battery back-up and cellular capabilities for it's alarm?!?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Obviously we thought we needed an alarm system and video monitors or we wouldn't have them. :)

Rare books and artwork are often targeted by professional thieves. This, however, was pretty amateurish and had all the earmarks of someone who knew more than the public would know about our operations and layout. A pro would have taken other things that were left untouched and yet easy to spot.

More amateurish evidence: A box of books was sealed up ready for shipment, with address label and all. They opened it. It was labeled books, addressed to a book service, and there was no chance it would contain cash or drugs or valuable equipment. Yet they weren't randomly trashing or vandalizing. That would have been the worst possible scenario.

[woodychitwn.livejournal.com]

Well of course you NEED an alarm system... I was just saying that if cutting the wires disabled your system, then it lacked both cellular and battery back-up capabilities. Two costly system additions which one usually finds only in more high-target locations.

It does indeed sound like an inside job, and I'm sure if they look into former employees they'll have no trouble finding the person responsible...

And yeah, vandalization could been VERY nasty... With however many hours to trash things unchecked... Yikes.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Actually, I woudn't have thought we needed an alarm at all. That's how naive I am, and I used to live in Chicago. No library I've ever worked at before had one, though some probably should have.

When I arrived here four years ago, the alarm was not being used. The director and staff thought it was too much trouble and not worth it. After a night when I had to close at 8 pm in the winter darkness, and two kids were hanging around acting very suspiciously, I insisted that we start using it. I believe they were looking for a way to prop a door open so they could get in after I turned the lights off and left. They had earlier seen the open cash drawer at the desk, which is another liability. Often it had so many singles in it that you'd open the drawer and they would fly out.

I insisted on using the alarms henceforth. So now we have a real incident, and the alarm didn't help, for whatever reason. Actually, my guess is that a combination of factors went into that. The door to the mechanical room where the alarm and phone systems are installed may have been propped open, which it never should be. The burglar knew where to go and what to do to cut the power (which kills both the alarm and the phone lines...I totally disapprove of digital phone systems) AND knew about the surveillance cameras and where to turn them off and remove the tape. When someone has both access to the critical area and the knowledge to do it, even much better systems are vulnerable.

An alarm that would use a cell phone to dial out rather than the dedicated line to the police station that we have might be a good idea, except... the library is in a notorious "dead spot" where cell phones often don't work. ;p

[atomicat.livejournal.com]

I think the answer is as you said... Inside job! That should also be the biggest clue to tracking down the asshole. Hey... Wasn't homeland security was supposed to be pumping in massive infusions of cash to protect your "intellectual and cultural heritage" from terrorist attack?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but HS considers libraries to be suspects rather than allies. We let people read whatever they want, not just things approved by the administration. And we don't cooperate with them when they want to find out what someone has been reading, either.

[atomicat.livejournal.com]

Oh right! Forgot about that. Must do my civic duty and bomb a library. Hmmm... start at home. Good ol' fashioned book burning! I know for a fact that I've got shitloads of subversive literature on my shelves.

Alarms, an inside job

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Dear Rider,

Several years, probably bikers broke into the Alaska Museum of Transportation and Industry and stole the old flathead Indian motorcycle engine off from a very unique and special, homemade snow machine, mostly made of wood.

They knew where all the motion sensors were and chopped through two layers of steel, barnshed type siding to enter and steal. Night of course. Oh, also cut a big hole though the barbwire-topped fence surrounding the museum.

The only fun part is that I built the engine back from junk parts and it was all junk other than, maybe, the cylinder flat heads. There was not even a chrankshaft, that was behind the long workbench with a bunch of much more valuable stuff for various projects old people volunteer to work on and regularly come in and do.

So the risked handcuffs, jail and hassle for nothing. But yet the homemade snowmobile (for you Lower 48ers) was no longer as interesting a display piece and thus many people (old timers of course) who would have understood and appreciated it, will never get the feeling and understanding that museums are all about.

That afternoon I visited a local nutty old guy who had guests, a group of old Indian motorcycle biker types. You know the ones. Dirt bomb big huge dudes in denim and leather covered in tattoos and checked it out. Many Indian engines everywhere in various stages of assembly but mosty dissasembly and I talked in perfect jazz with most of them and they seemed a decent bunch so I had to drive home with very mixed feelings. It may or may not have been them. Probably not. I told the museum director, John Cooper, a dear friend even today, about my visit and he nodded.

But it was a very expensive, state-of-the-art security system... thing is... all it took was somebody being very foxycareful to check-out all the cameras and the code boxes and figure out the best place to cut through the very wall of the building to gain entry and just where to walk and do this just out of the various ranges of sound and motion detectors and video cameras. Got away scot clean, gotta give them that.

Imperator

Re: Alarms, an inside job

[altivo.livejournal.com]

There was nothing taken here that would indicate thieves that wise or experienced. A couple of paintings worth three or four grand apiece, a Navajo rug worth perhaps more than that, computers and other objects would have been easy to remove and quite noticeable to a real thief.

There were employee errors too. An interior door probably left open that should have been shut and locked. Failure to report or investigate suspicious evidence right away. This may well have happened Saturday night, and several people were in the building on Sunday afternoon without noticing it.

It seems like a big risk and bother for so little. On the other hand, there are at least two former part-time employees, high school students when they were here, who were dismissed for petty thievery or dishonesty on their time cards. One of them might well have known enough and held a grudge or needed a couple hundred dollars for drugs or whatever.

Re: Alarms, an inside job

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Are they looking through the records of old part time employees?

Re: Alarms, an inside job

[altivo.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, there are only two likely suspects. Any others would not have been around recently enough to know the things that were obviously known in this case. But I really have no idea what the director told them or did not tell them about that.

[kamodragon.livejournal.com]

It could be a current employee too, you never know. Things change and the longer an employee hass been out the more afraid to try they get. Too bad people can't just work for what they want anymore. It's hard to trust anyone.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

A current employee would likely have known the better things to get, like the cache of several hundred dollars in an unlocked file drawer. That was not touched.

[chibiabos.livejournal.com]

Grah ... how much does remote security video monitoring/recording cost (so that the security cam videos are securely transmitted and stored somewhere offsite)?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Way too expensive for us, that's for sure. I suppose places like high class jewelry stores or major museums might do something of that sort.

In our case, the video system was added as an afterthought, and not very thoughtfully. The monitors and recording mechanism are easy to find and not in a secured space as they ought to be. Anyone who had worked here would know exactly how to deal with that, though probably many would not think of it.

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

This is one of those awful things that makes you feel unsafe.

I tend to get "grrrr!" over that.

Rob a library?

Must be a former employee, cause otherwise who'd know what
you had in there?

*grrs*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

All things considered, yes, it seems to me that a former employee or someone who knows a former employee was certainly involved.

However, the police now tell us that there has been a string of similar petty break-ins here over the last several days, one or two each night, mostly businesses on US-14 which is the main highway through town. Same method each place, break in a back window, grab some stuff of only modest value, and go out the back door.