NEWCASTLE, Wash. — A series of high-quality home surveillance videos helped authorities arrest a suspect for a January home burglary.
On Jan. 7, police say the man was caught on 11 surveillance cameras going into a home Newcastle home.
Craig Belcher, the homeowner, had set up the system from a kit he bought at Costco years ago. In this instance, he was able to pull up footage from each camera, tracking the man as he first rang the doorbell to see if anyone was home, hopped the fence, and circled to the back of the house.
There, he took a rock and threw it into the window of Belcher’s garage.
At that point, an alarm sounded, and the video captures the man quickly leaving the property.
Newcastle police and sheriff’s deputies shared the images with other agencies.
The next day, Bellevue police suspected Nicholas Rashad Laird in connection with a burglary there. They saw him board a Metro bus toward Newcastle and arrested him.
While they did not have enough to charge Laird for the Bellevue burglary, they recognized him from the Newcastle images.
When Newcastle officers showed Laird the surveillance video from Belcher’s house, Laird denied that was him. Officers then pointed out that Laird was wearing the same clothes seen in the footage: a grey puffy jacket and sweatpants.
Belcher said he heard that while in the squad car, “The officer at the front of the car had his picture up on her cell phone. And while he was sitting in the back, he goes ‘why do you have my picture on your phone?’ That just made me kind of laugh.”
Belcher said he was shocked that Laird was arrested so quickly. He said he thought he would turn over the video to authorities without much result.
“It definitely gives us some peace of mind, you know just knowing exactly what happened and knowing that he’s been arrested for it,” Belcher said.
He said without the video, he and his wife would not have known who broke the glass in their door, or if any small items would have been taken. Instead, they could see the man walk away quickly with nothing in his hands.
Laird was charged with residential burglary and malicious mischief. In the past, he has been convicted of forgery, theft, and unlawful possession of a firearm.
KIRO
