In the surveillance end of the PI business we try to stay alert, stay awake, stay safe, stay under the radar, remain as invisible or inconspicuous as possible, document the facts … and get paid. We are paid for professional effort, for our time, and although clients want us to not lose the subject, to see what there is to see, and to not get “burned,” sometimes subjects are lost and we are found. These things happen. In PI parlance, being “burned” means that we have been detected in our detection, identified as conducting surveillance, blown our cover, been made. The downsides of that are that subjects become more vigilant in looking for us and more circumspect in their behavior, making it more difficult for the next looky-loo (by a different investigator) to be successful. While I’ve never been sure which is generally more important to clients – our missing the action or our being burned (because they get pretty upset either way) – I think that getting burned can be the more problematic of the two since at best it’s will be harder to surveil that person, and at worst nasty confrontations can develop because – surprise! – some people do not like being watched, followed, photographed, video recorded, spied upon, and … basically … being caught doing what they ought not be doing and don’t want anyone to know what they are doing. In fact, at times they can get violent about it. Although there is no way to be prepared for everything, we generally try to Cover Our Assets and be quick and versatile enough to handle most situations when they arise. Still, every once in a while something happens that nothing – absolutely nothing – can prepare us for. And this is that story: For four days in a row the weather alternated from 89 sunny degrees to pouring rain and back. The sunny days were the worst. 89 degrees with clear skies can mean 115+ degrees in a closed, non-running, blacked-out surveillance vehicle. Not terribly pleasant. Not great for the PI, but it can be okay for surveillance if one can work under such conditions for multiple 12-hour days on end. You just have to be inconspicuous and allow for the general inability of most people to notice much about the world around themselves. Thus, staying under the radar was one of my goals. I won’t talk much about techniques, but I was right there with a good view and no one knew it (this time, anyway). On the next to the last hour of the last day I had to lower a window for just few seconds to take a video shot because of the afternoon sun and glare. Not long. Just a few seconds. After all, who would notice now? And as I turned to hit the “up” button for the window there she was. A little old lady, geez, around 65, and her face was IN my open window, looking at me and at a vehicle interior otherwise draped in blackout material. “Geezus Moziz!” I thought, and maybe even said, “I’ve been BURNED … by a little old lady!” Yet there she was and this is what she said: “Can I ask you a personal question?” (Me … hoping she wasn’t going to pull out a G17 and shoot me … generally went along.) “Have you had a colonoscopy?” (Me – dumbfounded, but attentive as she went on to tell her story.) This scene continued for a few uneasy minutes made uncomfortable by a couple of things. Obviously because an unfamiliar woman wanted to talk to me about my colonoscopy. Also, because although I had not been burned I could be at any second if the subject were to suddenly look up. He would then know that the dark vehicle he’d been right looking at for 3.8 days and thought nothing of, actually had someone in it … and maybe he would wonder whether someone had been in it the whole time. This client was very clear about this situation being avoided. Not “avoided if possible.” Avoided. In the end, the subject didn’t spot me, perhaps because the sun was now in HIS eyes, and the woman, satisfied as to the state of my colon health, quietly went away, never asking why I was inside such a strange looking vehicle. I went back to sweating my assets off and eyeballing the subject for a few more hours. Yes, in this business we must be able to handle whatever comes up because you just never know when it will mean your ass if you don’t. By the way, remind me sometime to tell you about the time I almost served summons on a herd of cows. Gil
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 19:31:47 +0000
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