Once Again Our Surveillance Assisted Our Team In Catching Someone Stealing A Package

First, it should be qualified that everyone is presumed innocent until found guilty.

That being said, it was recently reported that a resident Owner was expecting a package that could not be located in the package room. We were provided a confirmation including a photo of the item and a date and time of the delivery by FedEx. From there we were able to identify the package and sadly another Unit Owner removing it.

Missing packages happen – we easily receive hundreds to thousands of packages weekly. This is not a phenomenon that is unique to residential buildings or high rises like Park Tower. Other high rises experience problems as well. Mostly it turns out to be mis-delivered items. We’ve had packages intended for Park Tower residents that were for some reason delivered to a building on Bryn Mawr. We too receive packages intended for neighboring buildings.

Also, packages come without a complete address or even the name of the recipient. Or a volunteer mis-reads or mis-writes the unit number. Overall, if you look at the percentage of delivery errors, the percentage is extremely low – I’d guess less than 1%. And, our package room volunteer team completes a weekly audit and typically most internal anomalies are addressed through that.

Once in a while though, we have had to investigate situations where a package is taken by the wrong individual. Sometimes this is determined to be unintentional, but most recently it appears to have happened on purpose. Surveillance shows an Owner taking a package for which was clearly intended for another recipient. Surprisingly, when confronted about this they denied it, even after reviewing the surveillance, and very unfortunately did not volunteer to return the stolen package. The intended recipient of the package pressed charges, and the alleged thief was arrested – and it was not pleasant. They were taken from the building in handcuffs.

The Association will also be issuing a Notice Of Violation to this Owner, and the matter will be considered by the Rules Commission and Board of Directors. In the past when we’ve identified stolen packages, similar situations have resulted in a fine and the resident losing unsupervised access to the Package Room.

We do not relish taking such action, but this news should provide two things for our community.

1. Assurance that our surveillance and security network is working as it should.
2. Deterrence.

SPECIAL THANKS…to Scott Turton in our office who did the leg work on the surveillance, interviewed everyone involved, and coordinated with the authorities. ALSO, thanks to Maggie, Neil and Vince, our package room volunteers featured hard at work sorting in the cover photo, and who graciously provide permission to use the image. 🙂