Closed Circuit Television

We recently installed closed circuit television cameras in my place of business, and apparently, just in time. You see, I work in a grocery store. We're not huge like Wall mart or Meijer, but we aren't a tiny little corner store either. We get by by  filling a specialty niche in the market, carrying both locally grown produce and rare and hard to find gourmet items. We do alright, even now that the big brand bullies have moved in to the neighborhood.

So anyway, we've never really gotten around to installing closed circuit television before. I had talked with my co-owner about it a few times, but we figured that, since we are a locally owned business, who's clients are people in the community who support what we are doing, we had little to worry about. Installing video surveillance just seemed heavy handed and quasi-fascistic. I respect my customers, and want them to feel free to do their shopping without being watched by closed circuit television as if they were some kind of criminals.

However, my co-owner finally convinced me that, since it didn't cost very much and since, in the event of a robbery or other serious crime (shoplifting was almost a non-issue, as our inventory checks showed that almost every item that was taken was paid for) we should go ahead and buy the closed circuit television cameras. Why not. We lost very little for them, and who knows when they might save the day.

And it turns out, a little over a week later, the closed circuit television cameras were a great boon. Not only did they help our store, but they helped the community – but not in the way you might expect. You see, in the parking lot, there was a man apprehended by the cops, who claimed he was shoplifting. They also said he was resisting arrest, and beat him pretty bad. Normally, people would have taken the word of the police over the word of a suspect, but we caught the whole thing on closed circuit television. It turns out that the so-called shoplifter had, while buying a good sixty dollars worth of groceries, accidentally not paid for a can which he had left in the cart. Our closed circuit television cameras caught an officer following him in to the parking lot and beating him, with no provocation, for the crime of accidentally ripping us off for a measly two dollars. Thanks to closed circuit television, the cop is now behind bars where he deserves to be, and the man has won a generous settlement from the police department.