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“Smile, you’re on camera!”

When you walk into a business and are greeted with a sign stating this message, you might do a quick glance around the place to see if you can spot the camera. If you find it, you might give it a wave or a wink and then carry on with your shopping. Most of the footage captured on these cameras is likely to include customers roaming through the aisles of a store checking items off their grocery lists, pumping gas into their cars while showing disgust for the high prices, or picking out the perfect snack and beverage combination before continuing on with their road trips. These tapes are overwhelmingly filled with mundane activities.

Occasionally, however, the people responsible for reviewing security camera footage are caught off guard by unexpected and shocking events that they wish had never occurred in the camera’s view. Below, we’ve gathered some of the most unsettling and upsetting stories of scenes caught on CCTV that have been shared in this Reddit thread, and they might make you appreciate your own job even more, if it doesn’t include reviewing security footage.

Be sure to upvote the stories that you find most disturbing, and let us know in the comments if you have ever had to view security camera tapes for a living. Then, if you’re interested in even more of these creepy stories, you can find another Bored Panda article on the same topic right here.

#1

30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them I'm a little late to the party, but here goes.
I am a correctional officer on the night shift, so my job involves a lot of watching cameras and performing cell checks. One night, I'm sitting in my office around 0300 and some movement on the CCTV catches my eye. I look up and there is this big dude walking through my jail, looking like he was on a mission. The only way into the jail is through the booking room right next to my office, and I was 100 percent sure nobody had walked past me. So my mind starts racing. Did I leave a cell door unlocked? Has a violent inmate escaped? Our cameras are old and the halls are dark at night, so I couldn't see many details on the guy. Just that he seemed to be scoping all the other inmates out as he made his way through the cell blocks.
As I'm trying to process all of this, I see him suddnely stop and change direction, starting bee-line straight to my office. With no time to do anything else, I jump up and run over to the door, and get ready for the fight.
I waited for what felt like an eternity for this guy to bust my door in, with a full-on adrenaline rush. But he never showed up. I glanced back at the cameras and he was gone, disappeared into the aether.
After scratching my head for a minute, I went to review the footage. That's when I realized that there was a glitch in our camera's playback that had caused a half-hour delay, and the guy in the video was just me doing a cell check and heading back to my own office. Never been more relieved in my life.

Ercfrnss , Matthew Ansley Report

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    #2

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them So many of these will give me nightmares so I'll throw one in the mix that I never want to forget.
    A year back I was working at a hostel and we have security cameras throughout the building. Watching the footage from the camera in the kitchen. It is about 2 am and a very drunk guest walks in, grabs some snacks. and accidentally drops an empty bottle on the ground. He then proceeds to kick it up into the air then kick it again in air, where it flys across the entire length of the room perfectly into the recycling bin. In his drunken state he threw up his hands, ran around in a circle clearly in shock at how amazing he is. Then after looking around he noticed there was noone their to see it. After that he looked visibly depressed and stumbled back out of the kitchen

    xXxwiskersxXx , Kampus Production Report

    #3

    I worked as a security guard for a pharmaceutical company. I monitored a bunch of equipment/door alarms as well as cameras.

    There was a customer service center in one of the buildings on campus, and the customer service reps tended to be young/attractive. One woman in particular was spectacularly so. She was constantly fending off creeps. Like, people would come to the front desk of a secured building to try to find out where she worked.

    I often followed peoples movements out to the parking deck after dark upon request because lots of people were creeped out by the remoteness of it.

    There were several nights when I would see guys suspiciously waiting around when her shift ended. I would escort her out, and the security officer at the desk would tell me the guys would leave as soon as they saw me walk out the front door with her. It made me really appreciate how f*****g creepy and scary guys can be around women and made me wonder just what they were intending to do if she was alone.

    tumorrumor Report

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    Orion Red
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My first real job boss was a good looking woman. She had same issue and had guard escort every night. Her and guard got married! Been together since 1985.

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    When it comes to protecting a business, it’s often a smart move for owners to install some sort of security cameras. Loss prevention is something all stores need to worry about, and security tapes can help solve crimes, or deter criminals from attempting robberies in the first place. According to DataNet IT, security cameras are actually the number one most effective tactic in deterring burglars. One study of 422 burglars found that 60% of them would choose a different site to rob if they knew security cameras would be in place. And if they did not know prior to arriving to commit the crime but saw cameras when they showed up, 50% of burglars said that would be enough to cause them to flee the scene. 

    Law enforcement professionals also recommend the use of security cameras. One detective based in Philadelphia told DataNet IT, “Video surveillance cameras deter crimes like burglary, armed robbery, employee theft, vandalism, and murder.” While vandalism and employee theft might not be the main reasons these cameras would be installed, they certainly would be likely to prevent them. When we know we’re being watched, we tend to be on our best behavior.

    #4

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them Worked as a harbour master a while ago. Had to check the marinas cameras after a boat was abandoned at our docks. I was looking for the owner. I looked on the tape from the boats first night in the marina. The man who had sailed the boat in was standing on the end of his boat for 2 hours, barely moving. Then at 1:30am he just walked off the back and dropped into the water. He never came back up. Never found his body. Freaky.

    anon , Maël BALLAND Report

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    #5

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them I used to do asset protection for a Walmart in a very heroin addicted area. The creepiest thing was seeing how fast someone would go from completely normal to absolutely out of it in the span of a year because of the drug. You could build a timeline of their demise through CCTV pictures and video.

    One man in particular really stood out to me. The first time I apprehended him he was very polite and intelligent. Just stealing to get his fix. A year later and the fourth time I caught him he was basically a shell of a man. He tried running from me and I looked him right in the eyes and said "I know you, Gary Last Name, please don't run." The look on his face of someone knowing him who he couldn't even remember will always stay with me.

    ell98584 , Mike Mozart Report

    #6

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them Not a security officer, but I work in a teaching hospital, and (with permission,) we record surgeries so the interns/residents/attending can review them for Monday Mornings, (basically, meetings where you have to explain what went very bad or very good in the surgical theatre.)

    Well, I’m reviewing this one tape where something happened with the anesthesia during the procedure, and had an attending not caught the error, the patient would have definitely left in a body bag. We had to full on stop the surgery, give this poor dude Narcan and crudely sew him up and go back in the next day.

    Turns out, one of the interns was skimming narcotics - and as a result was high - and dosed the fentanyl in **milligrams instead of micrograms**.

    F**k that intern. And yes, he lost his license.

    kaaaaath , Vidal Balielo Jr. Report

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    Leo Domitrix
    Community Member
    2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Oh holy mother of mercy and all saints and deities that may exist. That's criminal, and that's terrifying. Milligrams are 1/1000th a gram. Micrograms are 1/1000th of a milligram.

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    According to Vivint, an expert in security systems, security cameras can also help employees stay on task at work. Their mere presence can boost productivity because employees don’t feel like they should be taking excessively long breaks or checking their phones during the work day. Plus, if a conflict ever occurs in the office, it’s nice for supervisors to be able to review footage to see exactly what took place. 

    While this may sound like security cameras negatively impact employees, they can also provide employees with peace of mind. Especially for workers of convenience stores, grocery stores that never close, or fast food establishments that pull in big crowds late at night, patrons can come in under the influence and act unpredictably. When employees know that whatever takes place will be caught on film, they can rest assured that they won’t be blamed for the acts of belligerent customers.  

    #7

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them I used to work Loss Prevention for a big box store.
    We had a lady get arrested for public indecency and I was asked to investigate.

    I had to follow her backwards from the point of arrest and it was a trip to say the least.

    She arrived at the store swerving and nearly hitting several cars.
    She entered the store with 2 young children, both of whom are mentally handicapped.
    That lady literally dragged those kids around the store, slapping them and tugging at their ears/collars if they didn’t obey.

    At some point she just abandons them in the clothing section, walks through the back doors (to the break area) and I’m assuming she thought it was the bathroom because she proceeds to pull down her pants and sh**s all over the fire exit door. She pulls her pants up (without wiping mind you) and goes back to the floor like
    Nothing happened. Someone saw what she did and followed her.
    Luckily there’s an officer in the store at the time and quickly approaches her when the associate tells him what she did.
    Needless to say, she was definitely high and/or drunk and was arrested.

    The scary part is, she did not mention those kids not one time.
    It wasn’t until I reviewed the tape that I saw they were just still waiting by the shopping cart completely oblivious and afraid to move.
    Child services was later called and I still think about those kids often.
    Breaks my heart to think about the b******t those kids must still be going through.

    codfish88 , Dale Cruse Report

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    Marleinah Smith
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I sure hope the kids are NOT going through any more bs, that children's services got them to a safe, loving family.

    Pg130
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I hope the police / child protective services were given the video footage of how she acted and especially how she treated the children and then abandoned them.

    Erick L.
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Some individuals shoudn't even have the right to have children.

    Mark Karol-Chik
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I swear, sometimes it makes complete sense that people need to pass a litmus test to be allowed to reproduce.

    Avocado Toast
    Community Member
    2 years ago

    I really hope the kids are living with a loving family now

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    #8

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them Was watching cctv footage of a parking deck, and on the ninth level there’s this guy sitting in the middle of the deck, banging his head on one of the pillars. All of a sudden the guy just stops, and runs to the edge. Without stopping or jumping, he flings himself over the edge. I immediately call dispatch and told them what had happened. Few days later I was offered counseling for those events

    Behby_Goose , Jose Espinal Report

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    #9

    Not necessarily creepy, but I work on security for a popular UK supermarket and came into work one day to find a note asking me to burn an incident off the cameras onto disk. It was something from the car park he previous night, so I figured we'd had a shoplifter in or an accident in the car park, but no, it wasn't anything as pleasant as that. We'd had a situation where a couple (older white gentleman and youngish Asian female) had been in-store and the night security guy just thought they were acting a bit funny, so he follows them round store on CCTV in-store to see if anything went on. Nothing really happens during this time, though the guy seems to become more and more aggravated.

    They go outside having purchased their shopping to pack it into the car boot, when a clear argument occurs between them. He suddenly turns round, kicks the empty trolley across the car park and then smacks her full force in the face outta seemingly nowhere. She recoils in pain, a bit more shouting takes place but she seems to dutifully take her seat in the passenger seat despite what just took place.

    During the process of burning this to disk for the Police, since our security guy had called it in as an assault, I had to rewatch the moment where he hits her over and over again, but watch helplessly as she seems to calmly get into the car of the man who just assaulted her. Long story short, she was a mail order bride who was trafficked here and as well as assault he got done for people trafficking, so a pretty wholesome ending to an otherwise awful story.

    cjas1999 Report

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    When it comes to employee safety, security cameras can also prevent sexual harassment. Unfortunately, sexual harassment is an extremely prevalent issue in many workplaces, as the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission files an average of 7,221 sexual harassment allegations every year. Not to mention all of the incidents that are never reported or filed. Sadly, this is an issue where a victim’s word is not always enough to hold someone accountable for their actions. With cameras in place, however, employees can feel confident that their perpetrators will not get away with their actions. Whether they plan to press charges or simply have their colleague fired for their misconduct, having evidence of the traumatizing event can be very helpful. 

    #10

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them I work in a retail store, and for a while I worked security here. Watching the security cameras wasn’t technically my job, but we were consistently short handed in that department and the manager was grooming me for promotion, so I got to fill in and watch the cameras occasionally. One day when we were reviewing footage from overnights, we saw this teenager calmly set down his shopping basket, take off his hat and glasses, and just charge at a wall. Hit it head on. He did this two more times. When he was done, his face was a bloody mess, and he put his hat and glasses back on and just left. Weirded me right the hell out.

    Agnol117 , Dean Hochman Report

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    #11

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them Was once working in a backpackers hostel on reception and had to monitor the CCTV for the building while on shift, we had them in all of the corridors but not the bedrooms or bathrooms (obviously). Anyway, a stag group come to stay and the groom is having a heated drunken conversation in one of the stairwells with his (I assume) best man. The argument lasts perhaps 15 minutes before the groom pushes the best man against the wall and the two embrace in the most passionate 10 minute make-out session, fueled with extreme groping and saliva exchange. Shortly after they disappeared into one of the bathrooms together and with a sigh I left the desk to go and interrupt their little session for the sanity of our other guests. I still wonder if the groom ever married his bride (he'd shown me a photo of her earlier in the day) or if he ended up with his 'bestfriend'..

    WritingFromABasement , Ketut Subiyanto Report

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    Cold Contagious
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Hopefully he decided to be true to his heart and not live a lie, as difficult as that may seem in the moment. It would be better than potentially ruining another innocent person's life, by marrying someone who he doesn't love with his whole heart and doesn't have a true attraction to. It would only end badly down the road if there's lying, cheating, and secrecy.

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    #12

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them Saw a chicken walk up the side of a tree at 2am.

    anon , James Wainscoat Report

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    Having a reliable security camera can also protect businesses in the unlikely event of a lawsuit. For example, a customer comes in and provokes an employee, trying to start a verbal dispute. They are screaming and yelling at the employee and eventually leave, claiming they will press charges because the employee assaulted them. Upon viewing the tapes, an employer who sees a worker that looks like a deer caught in the headlights has no worries. Security footage can be extremely valuable in a court of law, so when a customer decides they want to squeeze some money out of a company by making up claims, the security tapes can say otherwise. 

    #13

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them When I worked as a security officer it was my first week on the job I watched my boss and another officer try to talk a guy off of the top of our parking structure. Didn't work watched him jump off and land next to an employee who was coming in for her shift. Guy hit the ground so hard it exploded the belt right off of his pants. I will never forget watching that.

    Blumpkin_MCStuffins , Nate Isaac Report

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    #14

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them I used to do IT support for a company that had a lot of heavy machinery moving around inside a big warehouse type area. This giant front end loader would scoop up material and dump it into a hopper. Along the sides of the floor were these huge concrete barriers, (I've heard them called Jersey Barriers and Mafia Blocks, but they are about ten feet tall) and this one guy's life was ended when the front end loader inadvertently scooped the base of the barrier and landed on one of two guys walking shoulder to shoulder through the plant.

    I was tasked to review the footage, then make copies...six of them, to be exact...and then ensure that the footage worked and was self-executable and able to be run from a usb stick. So I had to watch the footage of this guy get killed over a dozen times.

    I, too, was offered counseling for just watching the video.

    shotgunsmitty , Rich Howard Report

    #15

    Creepy then funny. I was a property manager at a giant apartment complex for a year. Part of my job was to take complaints that came in during my off hours, review tapes to see what the cams caught, then address the problem. We got calls for people f*****g in the spa a lot. On the video: a young couple was doing the biz in the spa in just about every position. I recognized them and got the form out to issue the warning when the maintainance supervisor says hold on, he zooms all the way in and across the property, he could see a woman we all knew sitting on her patio smoking a cigarette watching. We thought, oh man shes enjoying the show. Then we notice theres the glow of the cig and a second glow, a small red light. She was taping the whole thing with a handi cam. She was a pastor at the local church who was always telling us how bad we were for allowing smoking and drinking on the property. She recommended multiple times that we update our rules to align more with the moral teachings of the church.

    Frank-Wrench Report

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    As I’m sure you can see from the stories detailed on this list, being a security guard or anyone who has to review security footage is not for the faint of heart. Most days probably have very little action, but the days that are stressful can be traumatic. Watching people who are struggling with drug addiction, people who attempt or succeed in taking their own lives and the abuse that sometimes takes place behind the scenes in a work environment cannot be easy to stop thinking about when a security guard clocks out of their shift. But another unsettling fact is that 15% of businesses never check their security cameras, according to a recent poll. There is no telling what has taken place on the premises of those businesses. If you have security cameras, you might as well use them!  

    #16

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them The closest to a horror movie IRL thing I’ve ever seen:


    Some of the patient rooms in our hospital on the “psych” floor have cameras to help monitor patients so they don’t move around too much or hurt themselves since they are often confused etc.


    Obviously the “night vision” low light camera makes everything look creepy. One night a phlebotomist came running out of a room totally freaking out.

    We looked at the camera footage to see what had happened. Patient was an old lady. Video shows a dark empty room, the phlebotomist walks in and sees that the bed is empty and thinks they must have moved the patient. At that point as she turns around the door swings and standing behind the door looking at her what I can only describe as *pure hatred* in her eyes is the patient, naked, with her long hair down to her waist.

    The phlebotomist was scared as anyone would be. She finally managed to say “Mrs. Shelby I’m from the lab and I’m here to draw some blood, is that OK?”

    And the patient just said “**No. GET OUT.”**

    Phlebotomist didn’t need to be told twice.

    We walked over to the room and the old lady was back in bed sleeping as peaceful as could be, never remembered a moment of it.

    moby323 , Erkan Utu Report

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    #17

    Worked at a hydro power plant in NC. The top was a walkway with a 30 foot drop off the back. Drunk group of guys is playing around on the edge, we see them on the cams, we call the authorities. In the time between, one of them falls.

    The thing is the water on the back side is being pulled into the dam. He falls into the penstock. We think he's dead, the 30 foot fall, getting sucked under water, through the cage, and out. We go out to find the body, and we find him, coughing and bruised.

    Neven87 Report

    #18

    I've seen footage of a kayaker get taken out by a swan.

    Not creepy - just hilarious

    Forgetful8eight Report

    When viewing security tapes, it can be hard to know what to look for, amidst the hours of customers casually shopping and employees carrying out their mundane tasks. According to Kuna, a company that sells security cameras, there are several telltale signs of suspicious activity that business and home owners can look out for. First, they mention loitering. Whether a person is hanging out outside of your house or hanging around your business without any apparent reason, this might be suspicious. They could be scoping out the location to return to commit a crime, especially if they take photos. If a person is seen loitering in the same place on multiple occasions, they may have nefarious intentions. 

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    #19

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them I work in the corporate office of a big security company. You might say I watch the watchers. Most people don’t know that CCTV control rooms almost always have a camera watching the operator. When something goes terribly wrong or terribly strange, I get to see the footage. The world is full of weird, but two events come to mind.

    We had an employee who worked overnights monitoring CCTV. She stopped making timely log entries, so we looked in on her. She was spending much of her night having an animated conversation with one of the tv monitors. According to her, her mother talked to her through it every night since she died.

    whatsamatterhorn , Seth Sawyers Report

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    Cat Palmer
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's so sad. Bereavement and mental health issues are a bad combination (as I unfortunately know only too well).

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    #20

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them While on a nightshift I saw someone sat on a bridge, looked away to call the police, looked up and they were gone, spain the camera down and saw a spatted mess of human, now that’s one thing I won’t forget in a hurry and really want to

    Blueeyedfoxie , JULIO NERY Report

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    #21

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them Was a security coordinator for a large electric company and had access to like 80+ facility's CCTV infrastructures. Was doing maintenance check on some random train station at like 3 AM, panned a camera as far to the right as possible to check that it was functioning, and this dude was on all fours eating a deer in the middle of the tracks. Watched him for like 10 minutes and went to get the other guy on shift, when I came back, the dude was gone. Rewound it, and the dude stopped munching on the carcass, wiped the gore off his face, and walked into the woods like he didn't have a care in the world.

    Read all the comments most asked questions and answers that I noticed:
    Where did this happen? Iowa
    Why did you just stand there like a dumb a*s? Was late at night at a middle of a long shift, also didn't really process wtf was happening. Kinda forgot I had someone else in the office that could come over and see wtf was going on.
    What was he wearing? Was kinda hard to tell, as the CCTV was basically filming at the end of its effective view, looked like he was wearing some kinda heavy outer wear, like something you would work outside in the winter with. It was late fall, so nights would dip into the 30s.

    Pics or it didn't happen. Part of the job was a very restrictive NDA, as in you can't bring any sort of recording out of the facility. I wasn't even allowed to bring a note pad with my nightly notes out of the office. Plus this was before most people had decent cameras on their phones. We still were using film cameras to do most documentation.

    Nissir , Jeff Cleary Report

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    a fruity dream of delusion
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    i- wtf?? im honestly concerned. *shudders* i can’t imagine just eating raw meat straight off a carcass..

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    Sometimes suspicious persons make attempts to conceal their identity as well. Wearing a hoodie and hat when it’s warm, sunglasses indoors or appearing to hide their face might not be good signs. Of course, people are allowed to dress however they like, but it might be smart to keep an eye on your footage to see if the same people show up concealing their identity multiple times. There’s no need to be rash and jump to conclusions, we cannot always predict when someone will commit a crime. But it can provide you with peace of mind knowing that you’re aware of what has been taking place in your business or on your property.

    #22

    One time there was a spider on the lens. It was big... it stayed there for like 3 days.

    simplerthings Report

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    Chickens are fluffy
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Great way to get away with a lot of crimes. Put a spider on the camera and see if people are brave enough to move it

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    #23

    Not me, but at a hospital where I used to work on graveyard shift. Security guys kept seeing this homeless guy enter the parking garage elevator around the same time each evening. They realized that they never see him come out again. He doesn't reappear on any of the parking garage floors, nor into the sky bridge leading from the parking garage into the hospital, or anywhere else. So they talk to day shift, and all the guys review some of the past week's morning footage together. They see the guy leaving around the same time every day. This had only been going on for a few days when they noticed it. Anyhow, maintenance was called in to inspect the elevator, and it turned out that the guy had been sleeping up on top of the elevator itself. Apparently he had a stash of food up there and everything. It was interesting and sad at the same time.

    Ghost_of_a_Black_Cat Report

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    Cold Contagious
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's very sad, and even more so because it's clearly not a safe place for him to sleep and hangout. It's too bad that so many homeless people don't feel safe in shelters. It really sucks that the it seems the more that individuals try to help the homeless, the cities or individuals will cause problems and refuse all reasonable attempts to help with tiny homes, tents, and many other types of opportunities that are offered by people. Tiny homes have been destroyed and tents have been sliced up. It's ridiculous and sad.

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    #24

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them I was working at pub in Sydney and watching the CCTV when I saw a guy continually cross and uncross his legs while playing a poker/slot machine. After a few minutes he walked to a corner of the room, took a s**t and proceeded to go back to playing his machine. Talk about being addicted!

    To answer some of your questions, this kind of thing is not rare. Mostly it’s people pissing themselves. These machines are evil and designed to get people addicted and that results in some people not being able to pull themselves away, even to use a bathroom. Finally, thank god I’m a manager, but telling someone it was their job sucked.

    walko2232 , cottonbro Report

    Are these stories inspiring you to install security cameras in your business or on your property at home? Keep upvoting the stories that you find particularly disturbing, and feel free to share your own stories in the comments if you have ever seen anything wild on security footage. Then, if you'd like to read even more of these unsettling stories, you can find Bored Panda's last article on the same topic right here.

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    #25

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them My time to shine! My first job out of college was working for a bigas** security company (think worldwide big). I was doing Electrical engineering and security system design for them.

    One of the first assignments I had was assisting in writing a report about a security system for a nuclear storage facility we had designed that had been infiltrated by nuns (no joke).

    Basically, the facility got invaded by octogenarian nuns who started covering the nuclear storage facility in blood they had conveniently provided in water bottles. The footage was.....jarring...in quite a few ways.

    GlastonBerry48 , Morgaine Report

    #26

    Worked security in one of the larger financial buildings in downtown Toronto a number of years back as a control room operator. The complex has hundreds of cameras monitoring the inside and outside of this building and I spent most of my 12 hour day and night shifts just people watching. It is honestly pretty amazing what people do when they don’t think they are being watched (a lot of parking lot sex on weekends for example).

    During a night shift, I have witnessed someone walk through the PATH system (underground tunnel system connecting many Toronto buildings) covered in blood with an eye popped out, someone eating their own toenails, some following others while discretely touching themselves, etc.

    One of the weirder creepy ones though was a man walking through the building in the dead of night (before lock ups) slowly, carrying a single balloon. That one got to me.

    WarCarrotAF Report

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    #27

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them Left my dog to have do some chore in backyard and came back to find my 8 month old Dog dead in my yard with blood oozing out of her mouth was too shocked with what happned and as i loved her so much.
    After 2 days when i felt stable I Looked at my home security camera and saw footage of her being run over by car and how she came to my frequently used chair trying to find me and collasped there in the yard....

    Damm those ninjas cutting onions again......

    (Sorry english is not my first language)

    boyz_zones , Thirdman Report

    #28

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them This was around 1997. In college, was a traffic reporter in a largeish city. I worked in a studio with live video feeds from our cameras all over the city/region. One Monday afternoon another reporter came running in & yelled "turn camera #7 to the underpass by (big football stadium)!" A man & woman were going at it big time over the hood of his truck. After about seven minutes, they took a break, & he got sandwiches & beer out of a cooler in the back. After snacking, they went at it again.

    After about a half-hour one of us suddenly remembered that one of our TV affiliates had started linking the video feeds on their website.

    Tweetystraw , KoolShooters Report

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    #29

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them Security guard currently for big pharma plant. Watched a guy make out with a barrel of some unknown chemical in the dispensing room.

    Couldn’t bring myself to report it.

    Dark_Shade_75 , No Revisions Report

    #30

    I watched a homeless looking teen receive a handful of cash from a man before pulling down his pants and pooping in front of him.

    BaconJellyBeans Report

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    #31

    Story time:

    My brother's friend used to watch security cameras at an amusement park. In the park there was one of those river boat rides, which had hidden cameras to prevent people from pissing in the water, valdalizing ect. One day a couple hop on the ride, and the girl starts giving her boyfriend a blowjob.

    So they get done, and the girl leans over the side of the boat to spit. Now in the event of any bodily fluids getting into the water, there is a whole process that must be followed involving draining the whole river, and decontaminating the ride. It takes a long time, and all the employees hate it. So as soon as my brother's friend sees her about to spit, he grabs the intercom to the ride and shouts: "SPITTERS ARE QUITERS!! SPITTERS ARE QUITERS!!" She panicks, having no idea anyone was watching, and swallows it.

    Crisis averted.

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    #32

    Years ago I worked overnight at a homeless shelter for men. A good portion of the regular guys that stayed there had mental health and/or drug problems. There were a lot of fights and the occasional stabbing, but for the most part everyone was relatively behaved and most were good people at heart. I received a lot of threats, but one ever acted on them.

    One night when I arrived for my shift I noticed there was a much larger police presence than usual. I walked into our office and the officer in charged started asking me if I had noticed a guy, "Richard", behaving unusually at all lately. I had not saw anything out of the ordinary and I told them such. I looked at the dorm list and noted that he was marked as no longer staying at the shelter. He was a long term resident so I thought this was odd.

    The police left without telling me anything except the fact they needed security footage from 2 specific cameras from the night before. I did not work the night before and the guy I normally work with pulled a no show. We were the only 2 people besides the manager, who was on a holiday, that were trained on how to burn footage to a DVD.

    I spent the rest of my shift in shock. When I found the footage they were looking for I felt physically ill. "Richard" had gone out onto the second floor smoking deck, finished a cigarette, got up on the railing, and dove head first onto the cement below.

    The first camera on the second floor showed him jump, but the second camera on the first floor was much more gruesome. He landed head first and rolled over in a way that he was staring right into the camera as he lay there dieing. I quickly put the footage on DVD and went to throw up.

    I was given the next day off. No counseling. No nothing. I will never forget that one. He was a pretty good dude as far as I knew him. Some mental issues, but no one knew he was suicidal or why he did it.

    ScatteredPayback Report

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    Cold Contagious
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    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    How sad and traumatic for everyone that had to deal with this one. It's truly heartbreaking when people feel they have no other choice in their lives but to leave this world. The hopelessness and desperation become too unbearable for them to endure any longer. We, as mere humans, often don't have the ability or insight to see these things in some people and they're good at hiding their true feelings from others around them. Sadly for some, we never know until it's too late to help them at all. Sometimes we are just not equipped with the knowledge and experience to help someone repair themselves and they need help from professional support and care in the mental health care industry. I hope we're all given the opportunity to glimpse these things and assist someone to get help instead of someone falling through the cracks.

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    #33

    I had to witness a 2 year old boy get ran over by an 18 wheeler. Was doing IT support a
    For a company that managed small to medium business network infrastructure for third party companies. We get called to pull footage from one of their locations. I was told the time frames and to grab all of the cameras. I had to watch the download to make sure we pulled good footage.... Here's how it went...

    Little boy is sitting on dad's lap and they are playing. Dad is tickling and chasing little boy around the lobby being silly. Mom finishes and gets up to leave. Hold door open... Little boy Continues game runs straight out the door and into the street. Boy never even knew what hit him. Every tire got him......... Was by far the worst thing I've ever seen. The screams afterwards still wake me up.

    Before you get crazy, I knew what I was getting into... Just not the extent, and how well the cameras/audio captured everything. I have multiple kids and one around the same age at the time I pulled the footage.. I went home early and just spent time with my family for the rest of the day.

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    #34

    This is going to be buried in know but I was working at a corrections facility and wierd stuff would always happen after lights out. The usual things you would expect rapes fights and just screwed up duckery. The one that sticks out is I was watching the cameras and a cycle through to see a man standing on the dayroom table completely naked except for a cap made from a bedsheets and a mask made from a sock. He proceeded to do a flip off the table and roll towards the showers. I called the officers working the pod and he turned out to be the dorm janitor having fun after work.

    zonedoutin806 Report

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    Unknown
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Usual things, like rape. How f****d is our prison system. (Is from here in the United states.)

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    #35

    Sitting in an Ops Center in the mid east, we watched a pair of individuals dig a big a*s hole into the shoulder of the road at 3am. We could only watch because we had to give benefit of the doubt "They could be doing irrigation" at 3am. Hiding from passing cars. We all knew exactly what it was. Watched them dig hole, move stuff inside of hole, fill hole, cover hole. Watched it all through a thermal eye in the sky, but couldnt do a damn thing because ROE was at its shi**iest point. We let the local mil know where to find it, and they said they'd check it out the next day. As the sun came up, I watched as people went about their lives walking over this couple hundred pound bomb. Mothers walking kids to school, to mosque, whatever. Farmers hauling their produce. Local mils found it alright, it turned their truck into a crater. Thankfully I wasnt on shift to see that bit.

    TheBeast5282 Report

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    #36

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them I had a job reviewing hidden tape footage looking for people ~~savataging~~ sabotaging food product in a factory.

    The entire idea was creepy on one level. They made pasta, they were finding things like glass, screws, staples and s**t in the product. Thankfully none of it made it out of the plant (they had metal detectors at the end of the line, because it's common for things like metal shavings to get in the product given the machines, so they want to catch that and stop the product). But machines went off and they'd inspect the product to find ridiculous s**t that there is no way could have made it in unless someone put it there.

    That's creepy because think about how possible terrible it would have been had that product ever made it to the public. You aren't paying attention, you throw your shells in the pot, boil them along with a nail, then feed that s**t to your kids who just chomp down? Thank god for the fail safes.

    Anyways, they need to catch whoever is doing it. They install the cameras in the areas where most of the affected product is made and packaged. They record it all. Then they hire me to go through the tapes on high speed, looking for alarms going off on the machines or anything weird.

    So I see a ton of stuff that's notable, some of it funny, some of it cruel, some of it just plane terrible. Eventually I do figure out who the saboteur was.

    But the creepiest thing was this guy driving a forklift around with his kid not only on the forklift with him, but hanging out of the sides of it waving at people. It's creepy cause at some point not long after that, the guy killed his kid somehow in a forklift accident (thank f**k the accident wasn't on tape or at least my tapes). Kid never should have been allowed even in the plant, certainly not on the f*****g forklift. And this guy killed his kid. So it was like I was watching a ghost. And I kept wishing I'd had those tapes to review a week or whatever earlier, cause as soon as I would have said something they would have disciplined the dude, and maybe saved the kid.

    billbapapa , darkday Report

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    Cold Contagious
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    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    WTF is a child doing at a business like that, playing on a forklift! This is insane! It should have never been allowed to go that far. They're all liable for this child's death. This is horrifying.

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    #37

    I did surveillance for awhile a few years back. One that I won't ever forget, it was late, I was working the grave yard shift 1100pm-7am. We had a guy come into the casino and he was looking normal, acting normal, nothing out of the ordinary.

    Working surveillance you kind of just pick who to follow and what to watch. I followed this guy for a few hours and out of no where he starts acting crazy. I mean slamming his fist into machines, fighting waitresses and security guards. Security gets him into their office and he calms down and is back to normal again. He gets 86'd and they call the sheriff's Dept to come get him.

    Before they arrive this guy gets out of the office when a security guard turns to grab more paper work to fill out. Guy bolts out the door and runs out the main entrance. We're scrambling to find him on camera. We find him naked in the parking lot below one our cameras. He's looking up at it like he knows we're watching him. He then proceeds to start smashing his head into the cement block holding the light pole and camera. Each hit he looks at the camera and smiles. Dude died well before the sheriff's office got there.

    I'll never forget that guy's face after each head slam. Took about 6 before he passed out. Weird as hell. Had to save the video and logs for evidence.

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    Cold Contagious
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    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That sounds horrifying and excruciating. The demons or pain that this guy must have been dealing with to do those things to himself, I can't imagine. I hope the surveillance guy was able to receive some therapy for what he witnessed.

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    #38

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them Watched a female employee, in the span of maybe a minute, pick her nose, itch her front junk like a champ, then reverse things up and go whole hand down her crack, scratching. Large lady. Then she pulled up the hand to her face and sniffed. Then inexplicably... She licked the pointer finger. I've seen all manner of weird s**t and that one sticks with me.

    Seen people p**s, s**t, whatever in the open, or in fitting rooms. Or people getting it on in the fitting rooms.

    Watched several dudes punching the purple clown. Always weird to confront them... Had to apprehend one for spunking on a rack of FUBU.

    Worst of the pervs are usually following young girls around, snapping photos, thinking no one sees them. And yes, I mean underage, sometimes *horribly* underage girls. Coworker of mine had to have a guy arrested who was jacking it in the children's section while children were nearby. I was happy I wasn't there for that. I'm not violent, and I'm about 100% certain I wouldn't have done anything more than call the police like she did. It's more the frustration that you *want to* slap the s**t out of someone and you know you can't do it.

    People will do crazy s**t when they don't think they're being watched.

    RiflemanLax , Cristofer Maximilian Report

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    #39

    Mostly lots of sex. I've had to turn on the microphone and tell them to stop it or they'll be thrown out. Of the college gym.

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    #40

    Not for a living, but we had security cameras installed on the property whilst we were living in South Africa.

    We had a monitor setup next to the bed so we could see what was happening on the four cameras without having to get up out of bed. One night we heard something, so we turn on the monitor and see nothing unusual. I'm ready to go back to sleep but my partner thinks something is off about one of the cameras;

    "Does this camera look like its pointing in a different direction slightly" she asks.

    "No. Same as always" and its back to bed for me.

    She isn't convinced so she starts watching the recordings. True enough, footage of some dude prowling around on the property and the camera catches him adjusting it. The terrifying bit? The way his face looked beneath the balaclava. Murder mask is what my SO called it. Pretty creepy s**t.

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    #41

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them Don't watch for a living, but work in IT so when something happens at one of our retail offices (such as theft) I am the one tasked with making a copy of the footage for the police. I usually will then show office workers the video because the people stealing are incredibly obvious and we get a laugh.

    My boss pulls me into the office. He says there was an incident as such and such location at whatever o'clock and I need you to get the footage........and maybe keep this one discrete. Turns out a woman high on something runs into our office totally naked carrying a pillow. She says that aliens are chasing her and she needs to use our phone to call the police. She runs behind the counter and then starts running around the office. The police show up and she runs out to meet them and quick gets in the car.

    She was not a lady you would want to see naked.

    HippoKingOfOld , Alex Smith Report

    #42

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them We have an old fountain at my apartment building that has a large eagle statue. One night I had to check the security cameras because of a break in, and at 2am I came across footage of about 5 guys taking turns humping the eagle. One of them even stole the Santa hat I had on it.

    fioratom , ManoharD Report

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    #43

    My mom worked a restaurant for 16 years, and was a manager for 12. The restaurant burned down somewhere in the middle of that time, but was eventually rebuilt in the same location but it wasn't perfect. There were several dips in the concrete floor, including around the doorway to the management office. Because of this someone fashioned a doorstop from a heavy duty metal door hinge as it was the only thing that would hold the door open. It was a pretty solid doorstop though, not a single person could budge it.

    Anyway, after the new building was finished, some of the people said they could "feel something paranormal." Items seemed to move spots and voices could be heard in the dining and bar areas, even at closing hours when no guests were around.

    Management suspected someone was just messing with the waiter staff until one night, whilst my mother was counting tip money in the office, a loud grinding screech filled the entire restaurant. The only other person in the building was the head cook, and he swore he was cleaning the plating area when he too heard the sound.

    A quick look on the security camera showed that the jammed door had drug itself across the concrete floor and nearly slammed itself shut. There was no one in the doorway, although there was some strange artifacting on the video just before it happened. The cook and my mother finished their work up pretty hastily after that.

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    #44

    Maybe a bit off topic, but I got to watch myself be jumped, smashed over the head, threatened and robbed on CCTV. that was fun.

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    #45

    ex-wife breaking into my house with her boyfriend. Does that count?

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    #46

    Not a CCTV operator but I was chummy with the security guards I used to work with. It was in a large 3 story retail building in a city centre and we had all sorts of folks coming in and out. We had a phantom wanker and phantom shi**er who would leave their bodily fluids in random places. There were known as Jack the Shi**er and Wanksy and it turned out to be the same guy. He was clever and knew where all the security camera were, he’d cased the joint. The only reason he got busted was because they were moved.

    By far the funniest thing I saw was a guy being chased in to the building on the second floor by the police. He ran around the shop for about 5 minutes while being chased by police and our security guards. It was great watching it on different screens as he moved through the building. Anyway he got to ground floor and under estimated the drop on to the escalator and broke his leg and the escalator him brought back up to the feet of the security guards who were chasing him. It was brilliant.

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    #47

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them Finally something I can participate in.

    I used to be a security guard and was stationed at an outdoor engine parts manufacturers world head quarters office.

    They had a parking lot that was next to the woods and a man came out of the tree line during the night and was staring at the camera for an hour straight. We had called the authorities to make a trespassing complaint as none of us wanted to go out and confront him.

    Around the hour mark he suddenly sprinted backwards into the woods. The police never found anyone.

    S**t creeps me out whenever I think about it

    BeerMagic , Johannes Plenio Report

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    Alexej Dvorak
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    how far out was this company's world headquarter that police couldn't get there in an hour?

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    #48

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them Guy took a s**t in the parking lot while staring into the camera. He didn't wipe.

    Canadian_Folk , cottonbro Report

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    Marleinah Smith
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    He was staring, relying on the watcher to protect him while he was in a vulnerable position. (why your pets stare at you while they do their business)

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    #49

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them My friend used to run security for a parking garage and he saw everything from drug deals to what he could only assume was prostitution going on but the one thing he will never forget was the guy that got stabbed. He was walking down the parking garage looking drunk, which is why he was looking at him, from his explanation he stops and starts yelling and flinging his arms around and just outside of that cameras range was another guy in a hoodie and basketball shorts with the same type of body language. He runs to grab the only other person on staff to see if he should call security or the cops, when he gets back after what he says was 4 or 5 minutes they are now in each other’s face and as the other guy calls security he sees the hoodie guy stab the other dude in the stomach/abdomen multiple times before making a run for it. The next five minutes were traumatizing to just hear, apparently the guy that got stabbed got up and was crawling towards the stairs and was just leaving this giant trail of blood behind him. If anyone has worked in this before can you answer me one question, as someone watching the footage are you allowed to leave your post and intervene? My friend said no but how could one just sit there and not do anything, the guy that got stabbed died and they were never told about wether the other dude was caught.

    lifeofarticsound , kat wilcox Report

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    Cold Contagious
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That must have been a horrifying dilemma for him, I'd have to go check on the person. It would eat me alive if I didn't. So horribly sad.

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    #50

    A pool at what seemed like a nice apartment complex on a hot summer day. Families and small children having a nice time playing and relaxing. A couple sitting on a pair of lounges across the pool from the camera. The woman was talking on the phone. They were a couple and the man loooked impatient but not very significant. and then the man just stood up and shot her several times. She tried to get up and he shot her in the head and she fell forward onto the ground. I’ve seen a lot of terrible videos but this was the worst. Everyone froze. There was nothing they could do. One little girl next to the front of the camera was holding her breath underwater while the event happened. When she came up she looked at her mom who was frozen in fear. I don’t think she knew what happened but she knew something was wrong. The shooter was wearing a shirt that said “suns out guns out”. I wonder to this day if he did that on purpose . Just as casually as he shot her he walked across the pool towards the security camera and left. They found him hiding in a different state and arrested him a while later. The girl died in the hospital. I’ve seen a lot of very violent occurrences and aftermaths but this is the one I always think back to.

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    Cold Contagious
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    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's horrifying, I can't imagine what everyone there was going through. I would have been paralyzed with fear myself. That's certainly beyond unexpected at a pool surrounded by families with children. I hope they are doing well now.

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    #51

    We put up a security camera because our nice neighbor flipped s**t. One day he started screaming at us that we were stealing his meds. Like what? He called the cops on us multiple times for random things like we came home and made too much noise at 6pm or we were parked in his spot. His car never moved. After it started my husband put a security camera pointed at the little parking lot right outside our apartment. Was an old Victorian turned into multiple apartments. We caught him on camera doing strange things. The funniest was he paid someone to bust out his car windshield sonhe could blame it on us or our kids. The week before he dumped all the trash out of the dumpster and blamed my kids. Um we have you on camera doing that. He was arrested about a month later for banging on all the internal doors to the apartments screaming obscenities late night while in his boxers. Cops said he was off his meds. He came back about a week later and was acting like he did when we moved in. We moved about a month later.

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    Marleinah Smith
    Community Member
    2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I've seen enough episodes of Fear Thy Neighbor, and a few Fear Thy Roommate episodes, to know you were lucky to be able to move, and smart to do so. Some on these shows couldn't afford to move away from their nightmare neighbors, and on 1 episode the bad neighbor did things to make sure the ones trying to move couldn't sell the house. SO GLAD you had those camera catching that stuff he was blaming others for.....geeeeez

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    #52

    Watched footage from the previous night of a nurse walking onto an elevator, casually talking on the phone. As she walked off a little log of poop slid out of her pantleg. The following 60 minutes of video were hilarious reactions, and lack of reactions, to the poop log.

    Lack of reaction came from random folks who didnt look up from their phone. One unfortunate soul stepped right in it. I wonder when they finally noticed that they stepped into human poopoo

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    Cold Contagious
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    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    WTF! How the hêll are a grown âss woman/man gonna shît and let the log tumble down your dâmn leg and roll out into the freaking floor of a elevator, and just walk the fûck off like nothing happened, while talking on your cellphone the entire time??? That's some messed up shît. I don't want a person like that in my life.

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    #53

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them Worked on a campus watching cameras, was doing my hourly check at around 1am while talking to my buddy who was the on duty guard.

    While flipping through the cameras, I passed by one of our enterances and saw some guy standing at the door just starting in. I spotted it and flipped back to said camera, and my buddy and I just stopped talking and looked at each other cause he was gone. I switched to the next camera, which was the exterior camera, and he was not anywhere to be seen. I asked my buddy if he wanted to go check it out, he said "hell no".

    We check the footage to see if we saw it right, and sure enough he was there, but we could never find him on any other camera at that time.

    The University I worked at was reportedly haunted, but I don't exactly believe in ghost. I still don't believe it was one, but it was still creepy as all hell and I can't explain what exactly happened.

    I have other stories from do patrols with guards at night, but that's my freakiest night on camera.

    anon , Aidan Roof Report

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    #54

    I caught on camera a couple running across the street and onto my clients property. I thought, oh great, some kids about to f**k, better go scare them. I walked toward the door, stopped, decided I wanted to get the scaring on camera. I got back to the camera, just missing them walking past the door. I see them peaking out from behind a storage unit and I head outside. As I approached them they had just left from behind the storage. I yelled something at them, I can't remember what. Then a f*****g helicopter flies over and lights us up, followed by a swarm of police cars.

    They'd just shot someone across the street and if I'd gone out the door when I was first going to I would have been shot as well. I'm a fast draw, but drawing down on someone who already has a gun out takes a world class shooter, which I am not.

    Addition: They'd been hiding the gun behind the storage unit, cops didn't find it and it took me actually going back there and pulling trash for them to continue the search. I found it. That was the first of 2 firearms I located for Phoenix PD in 6 months, later I helped police locate a bullet casing at another job. Finding the casing caused the guy's girlfriend to let police search her apartment and find the gun. He'd been shooting into the air to intimidate someone.

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    #55

    The building i worked used to be a hospital and the cameras would always act funny (fluckering, sense movement) in the part that used to be the morgue. Since they sense movement yippy gotta go down there and check and one time I went down and as i was walking away I heard my name get called out in a loud whipser tone. I looked for whoever it was and i didnt find anyone amd later on i beard a door slam in the restroom that was down there too, i checked and there was no one there but then i heard the toilet flush (sensor activated) amd still no one. I went back upstairs and talked to my colleague about it and he said he saw me running around on the camera but no one else in that room.

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    #56

    Kid pooped in an isle of Walmart and an old lady slipped in it.

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    #57

    Worked as a night auditor at a 100 year old hotel next to a courthouse which used to be a prison and a tree where they would lynch the prisoners. One morning, the chef walked into the back office and startes yelling at the night security person. He said that this is the second day he found broken wine glasses on the bar floor. The night security, a former CERT officer, stated that she made sure no one was at the bar before locking the doors and frequently patrolled the ground floor where the bar was and heard or saw nothing suspicious. The chef accused her of lying and just sleeping at the job.

    The General Manager asked the night security if there was any loud music playing at the bar after the bar was closed. Night security said no sound was coming from the bar thus ruling out the possibility of vibrations causing the wine glasses to fall.

    When the footage was reviewed, the glasses were hanging from the rack at the bar. Then all of a sudden, one glass smashed to the ground. Then another, and then the third one as if someone was forcefully throwing them to the ground shattering them to pieces. Except there was nobody in the video. I asked the GM if we can upload the footage to YouTube for publicity. She replied that such paranormal activities have already caused problems for the hotel's publicity and she doesn't want such incidents to be reported. Yes, there were other such events that had happened there but this was the first one I saw with my own eyes (through a camera).

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    #58

    Tried to forget this one.

    Was in college, working for a security company at a manufacturing plant. We had a Gate that faced near an airport, back road. There were no sidewalks on this road and it was often busy as a cut through to another high traffic road.

    Saw a intoxicated guy (drugs or alcohol), try to walk on the curb like a balancing beam, sleep and fall in front of an oncoming truck that was speeding through the area to get around the backed up traffic.

    this was in broad daylight, around 4 in the afternoon.

    Before he fell, we pulled him on the camera and made the comment, he's going to get himself killed.

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    #59

    Just recently watched some guy die in the ED. It was weird because I had talked to him when came in at the beginning of my shift. It was f*****g weird having to transport his body to the morgue. I hit a bump and said, “ Sorry Mr-...” then stopped mid sentence. I hadn’t disconnected fully that he was gone.

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    #60

    I worked for a Christian based university for security for a brief period. It was easy. 90% of the job was unlocking doors for people. I was working a Friday night shift and noticed a couple in the sitting area off the lobby. Which is a common place to see couples lounging around. I only started watching them because I could tell they were in a argument. I could tell it was getting loud so I thought I should walk over there and tell them to calm down. It was a small university so I was the only guy on duty. When I got there (the security office was maybe a 5 minute walk) he had left and she was hunkered in the corner near the steps I calmed her down and asked her what happened and she said nothing just an argument. I did notice her face was red and thought it was from crying and I walked her to the security car and drove her to her dorm and dropped her off. When I got back to the office I rolled the video back and copied it and saw that he had punched her in the face and kicked her on the ground several times. I called my boss which is what we were supposed to do. He took the copy of the video and you know what? The university actually did something about it. They kicked him out. Which I was surprised about. But....... He got back in after his parents lawyered up and the girlfriend confessed that "she aggitated him to the point of violence." He got back in. Life went on. They probably got married.

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    #61

    I used to work IT at a university, and last Easter we had a break in. We found the footage of the guy going in at 2 PM, leaving at around 3, and not really taking anything. Fast forward to 7 PM and the guy comes back in and is walking around the auditorium til 6 AM the next morning. In that time he proceeded to strip into his underwear, steal and wear a mask the Japanese exchange students made for the teacher, and smoke a s**t ton. He managed to steal 6 full bags of random items. We've dubbed him as the Jack Off Bandit.

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    Cold Contagious
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Wow! He had free reign to run rampant in there, having time to gather six bags of stuff to steal.

    #62

    I’m not in security but I work for a bank and part of my job is checking the cameras in the morning for pings overnight, and then making sure all the pings were just squirrels or leaves etc. Last week I saw a ping on our back entrance camera and when I went to watch the video, it was a guy I didn’t recognize walking back and forth in front of the door at 3am for a solid 20 minutes. Like just pacing the whole time, and every couple minutes he’d stop and walk up to the door and stare into the camera. Then he’d go back to pacing. A car eventually went by and that must’ve set something in him off because he legit ran away and didn’t come back. We ended up calling the cops about it but I still have no idea who he was or what his deal was.

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    #63

    Spent a few years working front desk for various shifts at a few hotels (moved a lot during this time so I got a pretty big sampling of people from here and there) but the one thing I will never forget was right here in my home state of KY, in broad daylight. A woman who did not have a room with us walked into the pool area from the large, sliding glass window, speaking on her cell phone with a bag hanging from that hand, and a toddler walking with her on the other hand. She let go of the toddler, then proceeded to get completely nude and continue her conversation standing in the pool area; not the pool itself, just the pool area.

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    #64

    Worked as a valet back in the day at a very high end hotel, had some friends who worked in other areas of the hotel as well. Bartenders, servers and one friend who worked security. After a busy Friday and Saturday night we all get called in like all hands on deck, every member of the staff. Hotel manager is pissed, they had set out a bottle of wine that cost something like $25K to rest I believe. Came in Sunday morning in preparation for a very important guest and the wine bottle was smashed on the floor. Everyone denied doing anything so it just kind of went away without anyone hearing what happened. A few days later my buddy in security showed me the bar footage. You can clearly see the manager place the bottle on the bar and then leave and close up. Then you see the bottle being slightly moved almost like a cat knocking a pen off the table. Then bam! bottle hits the ground and shatters and then there are what looks like foot prints without shoes through it, back and forth. There were tons of various stories about the place being haunted but that was the first video evidence I’d seen.

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    #65

    One time this guy went up to my porch and he got the Amazon box which was on my porch. He ripped it open and it was my new phone (an iPhone 8s) and he decided to take it and as he was walking away, a police car was patrolling pulled over and started to get out of the car. At that point, he freaked out and threw the literal box at his face and the police officer fell and hit the curb. As he started to run, he got tased. oof.

    Edit: The police handcuffed him and he didn't return my iPhone 8s. But I went down to the Police dep. and told them what happened and showed them video proof. I got my phone back. yay.

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    Marleinah Smith
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Wow, he decided to take assault on a police officer as well as porch pirating your iPhone.

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    #66

    I used to work overnight in a 24 hour coffee shop. Most of the time nothing interesting happened besides the time a car crashed into a light pole outside. However I did see something I cant explain on one of the security cameras.

    One side of the building faces towards the highway/town. The other two are up against other buildings. In the back however is probably a good 50 miles of untouched forest.

    One night I heard noises coming from the back door. I went to the back room to look at the security cameras and discovered a small herd of deer were hanging around back there. A customer came in a few minutes later and I went to serve him. When I came back later the deer were still there.

    Then, to my supprise, out from the woods came a mountain lion. It leaped on one of the deer and... well, you get the rest. Since the back room was connected to the back door I got to hear everything as well as see it.

    The following morning I had to go out and clean up the remains. I found a new job a few months later but I can still see that night in my head.

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    Alexej Dvorak
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    This surely wasn't a pleasure watching, but how is it something, OP "can't explain"? It's just nature having made an unfortunate move into focus of a cctv cam.

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    #67

    My job is to watch CCTV cameras on a dual carriageway in the UK... I've seen people jump of bridges, die in collisions but hands down the worst thing I've seen was a police vehicle running down a dog because they couldn't catch it.

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    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Why would anyone do that to a dog? Especially the police?

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    #68

    Not security, but I used to process film dailies and I worked on a movie where a name actor who you all know put his head through a completely real plate glass window, sliced open his temple, and bled profusely from the head for all of an 8 minute take. Nobody called cut, nobody stepped in. The next day the production called and asked me to delete that specific take because they wouldn't be needing it, but I didn't feel like destroying evidence so I told my boss and they told me to save it. Nothing ever came of it, but it was f*****g terrifying to watch happen.

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    Cold Contagious
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Sounds terrifying! Plate glass instead of sugar glass, I'd been furious.

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    #69

    I don't watch cameras for a living, but I feel like this applies. Several years ago we had a storm come through my city. Somehow during the storm one of our windows on the first floor was shattered. A couple of the other employees and I decided to look at the security feeds to see exactly how it happened. On the recording we can see a cleaning lady come into the office where the broken window was, however it was still intact. So we watched for a bit. She cleaned the windows, dusted the desk and vacuumed.

    The window was still intact.

    Several minutes later a male comes in and they start marking out a bit. Things get hot and heavy and they doing the damn thing on the desk, chair, floor, and everywhere. You can imagine. They finish their dance of love and leave.

    The window is still intact.

    We watched for the shattered glass and found that some piece of debris from the storm hit it and broke it. Which is what we figured in the first place. The storm narc'd on that couple for banging in the bosses office!

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    #70

    Worked in a bar where I was pretty good friends with the manager, they had full access to security footage to write reports etc. One night when I was off work they held an engagement party in the venue. Very well dressed upper middle class people, getting too drunk and doing silly things. Standard. Except one woman who had tried to gain the attention of a guy all night to no avail, followed him into the gaming room (pokie machines) got his attention, swung her chair around, hiked her skirt up and started flicking her bean as vigorously as she could whilst maintaining eye contact.
    My next shift at work the manager made me a cup of tea and we saw some of the footage together and just drank our tea in mutual disbelief.
    I’ve seen some gross pervs, but it was just so shocking to see someone you wouldn’t expect anything of doing that.

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    AndThenICommented
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My partner said a woman did that to him while doing some upgrade work in an office. Because he’s a tradesman they think it’s okay - suppose that could be another thread in itself

    #71

    At my workplace (public library), all employees have access to the security cameras. There's so few of us that we have to operate that way. Last summer, there was an incident where a frantic patron came up to me at the front desk and told me that a man was whacking it in the nonfiction section. Naturally I told my director who chased the guy out. We pulled up the security camera so we could grab his picture and send it to the rest of the staff as a warning that he was a degenerate. The footage showed him sitting in a chair in the nonfiction section, staring straight ahead at a bookshelf and just going to town on his dong. If you only saw him from the shoulders up you wouldn't suspect a thing. I thought it was super creepy how robotic he looked while getting off in public.

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    #72

    Whenever we have a bad crash or anything serious happen, we usually search for cameras that captured the incident. Cant tell you how many times ive watched people die on video.

    Not really creepy, but just not fun to do.

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    #73

    I don’t watch security cameras for a living, but one time I worked at Walgreens and had my coworkers tell me to look at the security camera

    It was close to Halloween and this dude walked in. He seemed normal, maybe a little odd, and he was wearing mostly black clothes. He bought a mask and some other things and I checked him out. However, on the camera.’x while he was walking around he walked by the pharmacy. The pharmacy has this camera where it also shows what it’s looking at, for safety and security. This dude put the mask on and just stared at the camera. Not moving for a solid minute before just walking away.

    Watching that video with him staring at me was too creepy, especially since I was the one that checked him out.

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    #74

    IT Director Here - One of the weirdest things that I ever saw was a co-worker late working on something and when most ppl were out of the office she would go from office to office and smell all of the other female shoes left behind. If she found a shoe that she liked she would then "get off to it".

    The only reason why we found this out was because multiple co-workers were complaining of odd odors left behind and stuff moved around their desk. We thought at first it was a cat or rodent that snuck in. That had happened before.

    She screamedcried when she left. 4 floor building we all heard it.

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    #75

    Not a job but my SO and I have the owlet monitor for our infant looking at his crib and room.

    It's set up like CCTV and its creepy to begin with. I wake up at 2 am and I go check on him and I go back to bed. Once in bed I get on my phone to view the monitor just for reassurance and I see two light dots like eyes in night vision in the window of his room.

    I first s**t my pants and I go in the room to check everything out. I cant see anything outside so I turn on the monitor again and dont see the dots anymore so I think it could be a dog or something. I go back to bed and wake up again an hour later to check the monitor and the dots are f*****g there again so I grab a pistol and go outside around his room and check the spot by the window really ready to have to pull the trigger, adrenaline is on full blast.

    I dont find or see anything but the monkey grass has been mashed down by that window like something sat there for a while. I set up a sleeping bag in my sons room after that for a couple nights and I checked the monitor so I could see what the night vision caught but I never saw those lights again.

    I'm super thankful it was just that but I was scared.

    Edit: I am usually skeptical about stuff like this. I considered lights and stuff and I hope it was an animal not a person (f*****g messed up person) but my son is now 6 months this happened when he was 4 months old and the camera has been there since we brought him home.


    The whole time it's been up I've never seen that and I dont live by traffic lights and no street lamp is on that side of the house.

    I seriously almost lost bladder control when I saw them again same spot just an hour later but when I went in his room and looked at my phone I just saw me and him and black window. It freaked me out so much I prepared to defend my family but he's 6 months now and I've never seen it again. So hopefully an animal 😊

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    Troy Parr
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Could it have been something completely innocent just reflecting off the glass giving the illusion of eyes?

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    #76

    Was my mom's experience. She works on a cruise ship and has to go through surveillance footage and put the footage in different folders. She said she has nightmares of one simple but creepy thing. One night a guy walked out of a cabin into the view of the camera and stood for a few minutes, doing nothing. Then looked up at the camera, moved as close to it as possible and smiled into the camera for about 5 minutes, but she said watching it felt as if he was looking into the camera for hours. She said it's just something she can't get out of her head and it made her feel so uncomfortable.

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    #77

    I used to work 7pm-7am and around 3 or 4 am I would start seeing things from isolation and lack of sleep. There were many times I jumped to the cameras to see if what I was seeing was real or not. I often thought I saw people watching me and jump off the parking garage next door, but it was never real so I stopped worrying about it. Until one night I see someone watching me and think nothing of it... until I go to do a patrol and it turns out that person is real and has been staring at me for 20 minutes. At that point I just ran back inside and decided I was done my patrols for the night.

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    #78

    30 People Who Watch Security Cameras For A Living Are Sharing The Worst Things They’ve Caught On Them I watched a woman use her finger to pick earwax out of her ear, which isn't too weird, but then she licked it clean.

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    #79

    It’ll probably get buried. I didn’t work as security but I did work at an electronics store (take a wild guess) and it was a department that shared the same supervisor as me. I was the only other person who knew how to work the camera playback and I got a call during my lunch break that someone had s**t the floor by the bathroom. Got back from my lunch break and rolled back the footage. It was a woman who was still in the store buying a cell phone and she couldn’t open the bathroom door because she didn’t know the code so she stood at the corner and lifted her dress and took a s**t. She finally was able to get into one of the bathrooms and “cleaned up” smelled like s**t every day for 2 weeks because corporate wouldn’t take our carpet cleaning request serious.

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    Nikki Sevven
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    You should have contacted OSHA, because human fecal matter constitutes a Hazmat issue.

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    #80

    It could have been nothing but it's definitely something that's given me an uneasy feeling whenever I think about it. We do temporary cameras for sites while they're in construction and this particular camera was set up parallel to the perimeter so you could also see the footpath and up the road a bit. So this one night a few months ago at about 11pm, I see a woman (probably 20's-30's) walking down the footpath, it's obvious she's just walking home from work or something and isn't trying to breach the site so I go to close it when I notice she keeps looking back at something as she's walking, I give it a few more seconds and then there's a silhouette of what looks like a man wearing a hoodie crossing the road to the side of the footpath she's walking down, she then starts to speed up and jogs past the camera out of view while the guy behind her starts to run the same direction after her until he's out of view as well. After a few minutes of debate I called the police to hopefully get someone to even just drive by and check it out but we never heard back about it. Not sure if thats a good thing or a bad thing.

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    Cold Contagious
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That would have creeped me out so badly. I would have been calling back to find out what happened 😐.

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    #81

    I saw a guy at my old job have a seizure on camera. It was at a liquor store. He was a town regularly, and never took care of himself. Looked off, but not even drunk. In the middle of counting his change his head snaps up in the air like he's looking to the heavens above. Then just falls right onto the ground. His head missed this wooden wine display by an inch or two. He flailed around and all the change he had was scattered along the ground, while one of the guys I work with called 911....Paramedics ended up coming and taking him to the hospital. He was okay, but ended up spending a couple days there.


    The best part of the story is while this guy is seizing out, he was in front of the cooler of 40's. So this one impatient customer, you can see his head sorta looking for a way around to get his booze. He steps over this dude, gingerly opens the cooler door, and grabs his Old English 40, before walking up to the register.

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    #82

    I worked security at an art museum in Ohio. It's a very old, architecturally beautiful building... While watching cameras one day, I noticed something weird at one of our entrances. I rewound the video and played it back in slow motion. There was a glitch in the video and as soon as the video was back to normal, a black shadow (sans person) went across the wall like someone walked through the foyer to the outside. There was zero movement on the exterior camera, as I also rewound it to make sure there were no shadows being cast from walkers or cyclists.
    The museum is adjacent to an art college, plus it's downtown. However, the street was devoid of any activity.

    That place is amazing, but I had quite a few "wtf was that?!!" moments when I worked there.

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    #83

    I worked as a stock boy at kmart for a few years a while ago.

    The security guy pulled me in on multiple occasions to show me hilarious s**t people were doing.

    One time he showed me a lady browsing women's shoes...while pulling her hair out and munching on the folicals.

    Another time, and I will NEVER forget this, there was an obese black lady looking through women's shorts when she held a pair up to her waist.

    Apparently that wasn't good enough, because she proceeded to lift up her baggy shirt revealing her grande floppy titties for all to see.

    Scarred would be a loose term.

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    Cold Contagious
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Did it really matter if she were black for this story to be told? He's being degrading enough in his description of this woman without adding that into the mix too. Some people just have no manners or common courtesy for their fellow human beings.

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