5/25/2014
California, Maryland, France, Germany: Traffic Cameras DisabledVigilantes burn, paint and swipe red light and speed cameras in Europe and the US.
In Beure, France, vigilantes disabled a speed camera on Wednesday, Plein Air reported. White paint was brushed onto the lens of the automated ticketing machine on the RN83, preventing it from issuing tickets. In Trensacq, a pair of speed cameras were covered in black paint. According to Sud Ouest, the camera on the road that runs between Bordeaux and Mont-de-Marsan was disabled on Tuesday and the camera pointed at traffic in the opposite direction was disabled on Thursday
In Gironde, vigilantes set fire to a speed camera on the N89. According to Sud Ouest, the device was sprayed with flammable liquid and set alight, leaving the lens blackened. On Wednesday, a pair of speed cameras in the Pays d'Auge were set on fire. France 3 reported that the automated ticketing machine on the A132 in Canapville was burned and a few miles up the road a second device was set ablaze in Glanville.
In Viersen, Germany, a vigilante used a forklift to ram a speed camera just before midnight last week Saturday. According to district police, the pole on Hauptstrasse in Elmpt was ripped out of its base and the camera now points toward the sky. Nordrhein-Westfalen Polizei reported that a traffic camera on Ostwestfalenstrasse in Bad Salzuflen was ripped off last week Saturday.
Police in Howard County, Maryland claim they caught a nineteen-year-old man set fire to a speed camera on Burntwoods Road early Thursday morning. Officers staked out another speed camera in the area on Saturday and, at around 5am, Connor Lynn Eash allegedly arrived carrying an ax, a lighter and flammable liquid. He was arrested.
Another nineteen-year-old man was accused of slamming into a red light camera in Marysville, California. According to KXTV-TV, the red light camera at Third Street and F Street failed to prevent an accident in which a blue Toyota pickup truck knocked the pole out of the ground so that the device fell into the bed of the pickup. Manuel Montano Herrera allegedly drove away with the camera.