On Thursday, France's M6 News released video footage of what appears to Kim Kardashian's robbers approaching and fleeing the scene of her apartment where she was robbed at gunpoint on Oct. 3. This could potentially be a huge development, but is the video footage of Kim Kardashian's alleged robbers useful? The footage of the three individuals on bicycles and two others on foot is extremely fuzzy and you can't even see their faces. All that is visible is five people who are reportedly going towards Kardashian's apartment at 2:19 a.m. and then allegedly fleeing the scene 49 minutes later. One of the individual's on a bike also appears to be carrying a bag that may or may not be filled with the reality star's jewelry. After that, these five people disappear. So, is this something that will break the case?
Well, if you think about it, the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star could very well be the key here. There's a chance if she reviews the footage that she may just be able to identify the five individuals' as being the ones who robbed her. That's something she might be able to determine based on their appearances, including their height, weight, and clothing.
Like Kardashian, 39-year-old concierge Abdulrahman of the Hôtel de Pourtalès (aka "No Address Hotel") may also be of some help when it comes to the video. He knows what the robbers, who were reportedly dressed as police officers, look like and as he told the Daily Mail in an interview released Tuesday, "At first I looked at them and one got very angry. He asked me to put my head down and never look at him again. He repeated, 'Never, never look at me, or I will kill you.' I saw that two of them had guns, then I just looked down."
Though, Kardashian and Abdulrahman may not be enough. According to a December 2014 report from London's Metro, CCTV cameras don't seem to be that useful based on an independent investigation from Instrom Security Consultants, which determined that removing security cameras didn't result in a significant crime increase. The study also found that the footage obtained by surveillance cameras didn't produce useful images for court. Now, this is just one study and based on the security cameras in Wales, so obviously this doesn't mean all security cameras across the globe aren't getting the job done or are useless in catching criminals. However, it does show that sometimes security footage can be useless.
In May 2008, The Guardian published an article on how "massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the U.K. has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology." The information came from the head of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) at New Scotland Yard and apparently in 2008 "only 3 percent of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe." At this time, the Viido office was working on a way to make CCTV cameras more successful.
Richard Thomas, from the office of the U.K.'s information commissioner, told The Guardian in 2008, "CCTV can play an important role in helping to prevent and detect crime. However we would expect adequate safeguards to be put in place to ensure the images are only used for crime detection purposes, stored securely and that access to images is restricted to authorized individuals."
According to a October 2008 Telegraph article, Paris metro and rail networks had an estimated 9,500 CCTV cameras, but police only had access to 330. Paris was set to add more than 1,200 CCTV devices around "high-risk" areas, including outside railway and underground stations. The plan was even called "A Thousand Cameras For Paris." Compared to Britain's four million security cameras, the Telegraph reported in 2008 that France only had 340,000.
If the above video footage is any of use is hard to say for certain, but it depends on a lot of factors. Obviously, this is in no relation to Paris' police officers or Kardashian's case, but Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville told The Guardian in 2008 that the U.K. needed more training for their officers who were to be known for not using CCTV images "because it's hard work."
Really, to determine whether or not the video of Kardashian's alleged robbers will be of any use is hard to say and it all seems to depend on police work, on camera placement, the quality of image, and just how reliable the footage is.
