Subscriber Discussion

How Do I Avoid Cameras Destroyed By Vandals?

UE
Undisclosed End User #1
•Oct 29, 2018

I helped install some Axis M31xx-L cameras in the kids building at a church that was recently hit by vandals who did quite a bit a damage. The cameras gave their lives doing their duty and we have some good shots of their faces when they realized that there were cameras in the building and then as they smashed the cameras that they could reach with baseball bats. Now, of course I'm wishing that I would have spec'd the LVE cameras for $50 more, but I'm not sure they would have held up either with only an IK08 rating. Has anyone tested the IK08 rating on these or similar cameras?

Originally I thought that a vandal rating wouldn't be necessary, since everything would be inside, and small children don't usually purposely try to destroy things mounted way out of reach like cameras. They were mostly for protection of the kids from adults with bad intentions and to protect adults from kids lying about adults having bad intentions.

Is it possible to automatically bump up the framerate on other cameras if camera tampering or loss of feed is detected? I don't normally want to record above 15fps for storage concerns, but if tampering is detected, I might want to bump up the fps to 30 and record everything for an hour on the other cameras, or a group of cameras. I'm using Milestone XProtect Professional for the VMS.

I can't give any details about the incident, but would be interested in post-incident response questions/concerns that I should be thinking about.

 

U
Undisclosed #2
•Oct 29, 2018

I think Hanwha X Series can do dynamic frame rates on tamper/vandal event.

(1)
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Brian Rhodes
•Oct 29, 2018
IPVMU Certified

First, thanks for this question.  I hope the cameras directly contribute to holding the guilty accountable here.

Second, It's a tough call to make a camera truly 'vandal proof', there are so many ways to disrupt normal operation. Example, you can have IK10++ or better, but the vandals spray down the camera with paint, or pry it off the wall by popping loose the fasteners.  In both cases, the camera vandals won't violate the IK rating, but it still essentially will be taken out of commission!

I think you made the right choice to begin with in considering:

'Originally I thought that a vandal rating wouldn't be necessary, since everything would be inside, and small children don't usually purposely try to destroy things mounted way out of reach like cameras. They were mostly for protection of the kids from adults with bad intentions and to protect adults from kids lying about adults having bad intentions.'

The cameras in this situation were unfortunately destroyed, but it sounds like they did their job. 

Are there any other 'layers' to add here that might have given early warning?  For example access control or intrusion detection?

 

UE
Undisclosed End User #1
•Oct 29, 2018
In reply to Brian Rhodes

I'm going to be looking into ways to have Milestone send the last seconds of a camera's life via email. That way we would know within a couple of minutes that something was going on. The perpetrators were apparently in the buildings for quite a while before something spooked them and they ran.

I set up the cameras to alert on tampering/dark images, but that wouldn't have worked at all in this case. In this scenario, it has to be done server-side.

Good point about the prying off the wall... the cameras were only mounted on sheet rock, so they still would have been torn down.... but might have still been salvageable....

 

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SD
Shannon Davis
•Oct 29, 2018
IPVMU Certified

The only way to truly keep cameras from getting destroyed is to keep them out of reach. Of course this isn't always possible. We have for instance in a gym put wire guards over cameras to keep from getting smacked with a basketball. We used the ones designed fire devices. Depending on the guard you have to cut some of the guard out but this works really well. 

JH
John Honovich
•Oct 29, 2018
IPVM

Related report: Camera Vandalism Statistics

JS
Jeff Shanab
•Oct 29, 2018

I have recently been playing with High Definition Analog encoders like the Samsung (Sorry Hanwha) SPE-410 and SPE-1610.  I have hooked up el-cheapo 2MP's I got off of amazon and better 4MP cameras. Impressive Quality. I thought this would be great in situations like drive-thru's but I suppose it could also reduce replacement costs when vandals hit.

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