Hawaii Five-Slow

Our building has a number of exterior-facing cameras that look out across the streets of Honolulu’s central business district. Sometimes these cameras capture other things happening in the general area, and we work with the police department to provide footage to assist their investigations. I think nearly every building downtown does this.

Our cameras are a mixture of older mechanical cameras from the early and mid 2000’s and newer cameras called “360’s” which record constantly in a circle.

At the time of this story, there had been a car accident in which a Ford Focus smashed into a light pole, causing a traffic light to come loose and crush a parked car. The driver was arrested under suspicion of OWI (or DUI, DWI, whatever it’s called now).

A newer detective came to our building to see if we had captured anything. I looked through our cameras and found that our closest view was one of the older, mechanical, point/tilt/zoom cameras, which had probably been perched on the side of the building since the George W Bush administration. I brought up the recording of the night in question while chatting with the officer about how a traffic light probably shouldn’t have broken free from such a minor collision in the first place. 

I played the footage and, as expected, it was just out of range of the camera’s fixed view.

Me: “Ah, dang, sorry about that, sir.”

Detective: “No, that’s great, can you just turn the view a little bit?”

Me: “No, sir, this is a… It’s a singular directional camera; I don’t have the ability to rotate and change the footage like the one on the corner of [other street].”

Detective: “Isn’t that what the…” *He points at the controls built into the desktop.*

Me: “Yes! But that will only rotate the camera… live, it’s… it wasn’t pointing that direction when this happened, so it didn’t record it.”

The security manager comes in at this point with lunch for himself and me.

Detective: “Yeah, just point it and then pull up the archive again.”

Me: “Sorry, detective, that wouldn’t change the recorded footage. The lens of the camera was not facing the direction of the crash when it happened. This type of camera needs to be pointing in the physical direction of the incident. It’s… like a lens on a ball.”

Detective: “You only need to move it a little.”

Me: “That won’t change… the recorded footage, sir. This camera only records what is directly in front of it.”

Detective: “I know, but it just needs to come over like a foot, not even a foot, like a third of a foot.”

Me: “That’s not possible, the footage is recorded as it is.”

Detective: “Are you new or something?”

Me: “Are YOU new? Like, to thinking?”

Manager: “What he’s trying to say, [Detective’s First Name], is that the camera did not record what you need, unfortunately.

Detective: “Of course it did, it’s a camera!”

The manager sighed and put down the bag of food he was holding, picking up a Sony hand camera instead.

Manager: “Take this.”

The detective did so, and my manager walked behind him.

Manager: “Okay, record the door.”

Detective: “What the he—”

Manager: “Just do it.”

The detective obliged, recording the door to our office for a few moments.

Manager: “Okay, good, now cue up the footage.”

Another pause.

Detective: “Yeah.”

Manager: “Play it, but show me, me.”

Detective: “I can’t do that; the camera wasn’t facing you.”

My manager spread out both arms with an exaggerated smile like a stage presenter on a cartoon.

Manager: “AND HE’S ALL CAUGHT UP NOW!”

Detective: “I don’t unders—OH! Ohhhhhhhhhhh, oh… f***. Sorry about that.”

Manager: “No problem!”

Me: “It’s all good!”

The detective left shortly after, and my manager handed me my food. As I reached for it, he swatted at me.

Manager: *Laughing.* “Are you new to thinking?” Really!?”

Me: “Sorry!”