Jugging and Parking Lot Cameras?
Parking lot cameras are quickly becoming an essential item financial institutions will need going forward. Jugging – when thieves follow customers after they make a cash withdrawal at a financial institution and rob them in a more secluded setting – is a growing trend across the United States, and it is coming soon to your area.
Street gangs have learned that, in many cases, financial institutions don’t pay attention or place surveillance cameras in the parking lot. In what started in Houston, Texas more than ten years ago, gang members discovered they could park in an institution’s parking lot and observe customers exiting. They would particularly look for someone who appeared to be carrying a large amount of cash as they walked toward their vehicles. When the person pulled out of the parking lot, the thieves in waiting would follow them to the mall or other public place. If the person left the money in the car, they would break into the vehicle after the victim entered the mall and no-one got hurt. If the person went home, depending on the surroundings, they might be mugged at their home while they juggled with their door keys. As a result, the term jugging was used to identify these crimes.
Later, these same gang members discovered that ATM service people were also an easy target. The service provider would drive up to the drive-thru lane ATM and open the machine to service it. This soon became a new attack when thieves discovered that, as the technician got on their hands and knees to service the ATM, they provided access to the cash drawers. The gang members could easily drive up, push the repair person aside, and steal the cash drawers. On video, police observed that the entire robbery was over sometimes in fifteen seconds. The problem was that financial institutions had no cameras in this area that captured cars or license plate numbers. These types of robberies are now spreading across the country. https://news.yahoo.com/violent-bank-juggingrobberies-rise-152616320.html
Other incidents that are starting to happen are customers, or non-customers, claiming that they have been mugged at your location. Without cameras, you can’t easily defend yourself against attacks in your parking lots or walkways. One bank purchased a location that had one parking lot camera. When a customer claimed to have been mugged in the parking lot, footage from that very camera proved no one was mugged in front of the branch.
Many banks don’t want to place cameras in the parking lot because they don’t want to be subpoenaed or asked by anyone for pictures from the outside cameras. People will request these pictures when they are involved in car accidents, muggings, domestic incidents, or as in one case, a local mayor was being harassed by someone unknown to him. Working with your vendor, you should be able to position the cameras to photograph only your premises.
One place you do want to have cameras installed is in a location where they can photograph the rear of motor vehicles. With several states no longer requiring front license plates, this has resulted in some banks with cameras capturing only the front of the vehicle and with no license plate photographed in attempted robberies. Law enforcement involved with these types of cases become very frustrated when there are no cameras in the parking lot or drive-in areas. Financial institutions need to reevaluate deploying cameras in the parking lot areas to obtain proper photographs for criminal prosecution. When the local press reports that no cameras exist in the parking lot of your local financial institution after an incident, it can be very damaging to your reputation. Therefore, we are now recommending that all financial institutions install parking lot cameras.
