CINCINNATI -- Joe Sawyer said he's been the victim of a crime one too many times: His home off Montgomery Road has been burglarized twice, most recently in June.
"The back room back there, a few drawers were just turned upside down, stuff thrown all over the place," he said.
The thief got away with a cellphone and digital camera. And that's when Sawyer decided to invest in a different camera of his own: home surveillance.
On July 4, just before noon, the camera caught a man walking alongside the house; he turned the corner, spotted another surveillance camera and seems to reconsider.
Sawyer said he thinks the man was headed to a back window that's been used to break into his home before, "probably just slitting the screen and just climbing right in," he said.
Studies show a significant decrease in the number of property crimes committed near surveillance cameras; the idea is that signs alerting people to the presence of a camera will possibly prevent a crime from happening. But the effectiveness of reducing crime overall varies, based on the camera setup and how it's monitored.
"I wanted to go ahead and do this to maybe identify this person, if people might know who he is or maybe prevent him from doing it again," Sawyer said.
