CCTV System Helps to Capture Church Assailant
This is a headline that we will often see. CCTV systems will sometimes help prevent a crime from happening due to the perceived deterrence factor, but unless the system is being monitored by an on site security staff, it is mostly used to provide a record of what happened to the police or courts. This does not mean that a system is useless but do not believe that the presence of a CCTV system will make you or your church immune to acts of violence. Choosing the correct system and defining the proper location of the cameras is critical to having an effective program in place.
The following link to a sexual assault in church shows that the CCTV System provided valuable information to permit the capture of the assailant. The story also illustrates that the woman had a awareness level that led her to defend herself with an improvised weapon, her pen.
Story introduction
MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. — A woman praying in the chapel of a Catholic church drove off an attacker by stabbing him in the neck with a pen early Wednesday morning, police said.
Police said they now have a suspect in custody. The 58-year-old woman was praying at the chapel of St. Joseph’s Church in Middletown just after midnight, said Middletown Police Chief Matthew Byrne.
A man walked into the church and sat across the aisle from her in another pew, then left minutes later. When he returned he went over to the woman, reached into her shirt and grabbed her chest, Byrne said.The woman was writing in a journal and used her pen to stab him. The man ran off, but the incident was recorded by the church’s security cameras.On Friday, a man with a history of psychiatric problems was arrested on charges in the attack on the woman.
