Lone Night Guard: Two Dead Cameras, Cut Mesh and a Waiting Tempo
You are the lone guard on a 2200-0600 shift at a two-storey electronics assembly unit on the edge of an industrial estate. The perimeter is a 2.4 m chain-link fence with three strands of barbed wire on top; the rear boundary backs onto a canal and is unlit. The control room has six cameras on one monitor with a 7-day DVR: camera 1 main gate, 2 front yard, 3 rear yard, 4 store door, 5 first-floor corridor, 6 car park. At 0140 you notice camera 3 shows a grey, flat image, and camera 5 is frozen at 0132. There is a 15 cm gap where the fence mesh is cut near the canal, and damp cardboard has been pushed into it. The alarm panel shows "zone 4 fault" and has been beeping since 2300. A tempo has been parked on the road outside for 40 minutes with two men inside. Your mobile has one bar of signal and the supervisor's phone is switched off.
1. Separate the equipment faults from the intrusion indicators, and state what you would assume and why.
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Equipment faults explain pictures; they do not explain cut steel and cardboard.
- Camera 3 grey flat image = loss of video signal or dead camera - an equipment symptom.
- Camera 5 frozen at 0132 = DVR or camera freeze - a recording symptom, not evidence of what happened in the corridor.
- Zone 4 fault beeping since 2300 = an open circuit or tamper on that zone. It could be a loose contact, or it could be the fence being cut.
Physical indicators carry more weight than screen symptoms: the 15 cm cut in the mesh near the unlit canal boundary, and damp cardboard pushed into the gap, are deliberate concealment. Cardboard is not placed in a fence by weather.
Therefore assume attempted intrusion at the rear until proved otherwise, because the rear is now the blind side: camera 3, the only rear view, is down, and zone 4 is the boundary near the cut. The tempo 40 minutes outside with two occupants is consistent with a lookout or transport, though it is not proof. The test is: does one explanation cover every indicator? Only intrusion does. The fault explanation leaves the cut mesh unexplained.
2. You are alone. Give your actions in order, including what you would not do.
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A lone unarmed guard observes, deters and reports; he does not clear a building or confront two men.
- Do not leave the main gate and control room. Lock the gate if it can be locked without trapping yourself outside.
- Call the police (100) and estate security first, before the supervisor - the supervisor's phone is off, and a call to a switched-off phone is not an alarm. Give the address, the cut fence location, the tempo description and registration, and that you are alone.
- Keep calling the supervisor and management between other actions, and log every attempt and time.
- Switch the monitor to cameras 2 and 6 to watch the road and front, and turn on any yard floodlight or external light that covers the rear - light is a deterrent.
- Do not power-cycle the DVR, and do not reset the alarm panel; that destroys the record you will need.
- Do not walk to the rear fence or the store alone to investigate. If you must check the store door, do it only with the gate locked, torch off, from a position with an escape route, and after the police call is made.
- If entry appears to have occurred, withdraw to a safe observation point, keep watching the rear route, and wait for police. Note times of every action.
3. How would you preserve evidence and record the incident so that it stands up later?
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Evidence is preserved by not touching, not rebooting and not paraphrasing.
- Fence and cardboard: do not handle or replace the mesh; photograph the cut with a scale (a pen or tape) if a phone is permitted, and note the exact location relative to the canal corner and the nearest post.
- DVR: note that camera 5 froze at 0132 and camera 3 failed by 0140; record the DVR clock against your own watch to establish any time offset. Do not delete, format or restart. If a police officer asks for footage, record who took it and when.
- Alarm panel: record "zone 4 fault" and the time it started, plus the fact that it was not reset.
- The tempo: registration, colour, number of occupants, first and last time seen, direction of departure.
- Statement: chronological, time-stamped, in the first person, with what you saw, what you did, who you informed and when. Write "camera 3 displayed a grey image at 0140" rather than "camera 3 was destroyed" - the first is what you know, the second is a conclusion. If you correct an entry, strike it once, initial and date it; never overwrite.