A robbery is not someone breaking into your home or business – that’s a burglary. A robbery is taking something from someone by force, threat, gun, knife, or similar means.

The number of robberies in the United States has declined in the past few years, while the number of states allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons has increased. Most states have reported the number of permit holders increasing over time “with hard numbers or estimates from all but three of the 49 states that have laws allowing for issuance of carry permits.” (Makes sense, doesn’t it?)

Now, what doesn’t make sense is that convenience stores all over the country hire people to work alone and late at night with virtually no protection and damn little security.

Oh yeah, some have surveillance systems, right? Some have Mickey Mouse imitation cameras from Harbor Freight, while some have high-quality cameras to show the vehicle license in the driveway to prosecute drive-offs, but provide very little security for the employees.

Remember Katie Poirier? The intelligent, beautiful, well-loved 18-year-old college student who was working late at a convenience store in Moose Lake, Minnesota? She was abducted late one night; there were a number of cameras in the store and the entire thing was recorded, including the suspect dragging Katie out of the store with a rope around her neck.

The quality of the recordings was so bad they couldn’t even tell what type of clothing the suspect wore. The recording was black and white, blurry, grainy video at its worst. There was a witness who saw a suspicious black Ford F150 and she even got four out of six of the license plate numbers, and noticed that it had an air lift gate on it.

The crime bureau, local police, deputies, the FBI and hundreds of people were immediately involved in the search for her and any suspect, but the problem was, they didn’t know who they were looking for.

The surveillance video was viewed by the FBI and later was sent to the space lab for enhancement, but it never really revealed the faces. Someone did manage to figure out that the suspect was wearing an unusual baseball jersey with a number on it.

All of this was too little, too late. Two or three months later, what was left of Katie’s body – a few bone fragments and a couple of teeth – were found in some sex offender’s fire pit a few miles from where she was abducted.

This kind of thing has happened time and time again because of business people installing cheaper-than-cheap crap for surveillance, because they really couldn’t care less about their employees and are more concerned about making it look like they have something workable.

I have purchased and used TV cameras for $29.95 that have five times the detail and quality I see in many of these robbery tapes we see on TV. Isn’t it important enough to make it a law that if you have cameras, THEY MUST WORK PROPERLY?

Tom “Road” Blair

Website: www.tomroadblair.com