Hidden camera found in bushes in Arcadia neighborhood
ARCADIA, Calif. (KABC) -- A hidden camera was found in the bushes outside a home in Arcadia, and the homeowner is speaking out about the troubling discovery.
Chris Seymour says his dog alerted him that there was something hidden in a hedge outside his home Tuesday morning.
"I just picked it up and when I turned it over, I could see the little lens of the camera, and I immediately knew that this is something," he told Eyewitness News.
The camera was camouflaged to look like another plant, with the lens peeking through the leaves. It was on a corner, positioned to see several homes, but it apparently had fallen to the ground.
Seymour immediately called police.
"It's pointed right at a driveway. I do think it was most likely involved in some burglaries that have have been around here," he added.
It's a situation that has been seen before in other communities, including ones where the cameras are covered in clay to look like a rock and then hidden on the street.
"It is something that the organized theft groups, or the organized residential burglary crews that we've been seeing, will use to get patterns of people in neighborhoods... They'll have the comings and goings of people in certain locations," said Lt. Kollin Cieadlo from the Arcadia Police Department.
The neighborhood watch program is now telling people to be aware of what happened.
"This is definitely a wake up call to let the that neighbors know that there are bad people out there, and if we work together as a neighborhood we can help deter crime," said David Arvizu, the neighborhood watch area coordinator
Cieadlo said authorities will examine the camera to see if it was recording to an external device or SD card that might be on the camera itself.
"We'll try to get footage of that to see what exactly they were looking at."
Police aren't sure how long the camera was in the bushes. They are adding extra patrols to the neighborhood to make sure citizens feel safe.
