Front Page  »  

Man caught on SLO doorbell camera arrested

October 27, 2016

14702272_10104982999066757_6013780787854938979_nSan Luis Obispo Obispo police have arrested the man who was captured by a surveillance camera lurking outside a woman’s home on Saturday.

Officers identified the man in the video as San Luis Obispo resident Michael Dean Sutton, 38. Sutton is currently in SLO County Jail on an attempted burglary charge.

At about 2:34 a.m., Sutton was spotted lurking by the front door of the woman’s San Luis Obispo home, a SLOPD news release states. He was wearing gloves, a light colored shirt and a baseball cap.

The video shows Sutton checking the door handle and acting in a suspicious manner. Eventually, Sutton noticed the camera outside the home. He placed a finger over the lens, wiped away debris and then left the area.

“Ring,” a virtual doorbell app, notified the woman inside the home while Sutton was lurking outside. Initially, the woman assumed the man was a lost, drunk college student. Later that morning, she watched the surveillance footage and reported the incident to police.

Following the incident, there was speculation the man was armed with a gun, due to a bulge seen in the back of his pants. The SLOPD press release makes no mention of a firearm.

As video of the would-be burglar spread, investigators received several leads as to the identity of the suspect. On Tuesday, investigators contacted Sutton and interviewed him.

Police determined Sutton was the man in the video, arrested him and booked in jail. Sutton’s bail is set at $25,000.

The police department is reminding residents to lock the doors of both their homes and vehicles.


Loading...
Subjects:             
Related:


18 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

If they think you are armed, they will probably go to an easier target . Cameras, a Belgian Malinois or two, being heavily armed, gives you a distinct advantage over a burglar. Sit at home and wait for the cops, or defend your family? I’ll take number two.


0

Buy a gun people.


This city is getting really dangerous.. SLO PD isn’t helping the residents much. Same lunatic drifters walking around town 24/7 not being stopped by police doing the same stuff day after day and generally lurking around our parks and neighborhoods.


More crazy homeless drifters roaming neighborhoods later in the evening and night. Many times now coming up to people’s front doors, checking to see if the house is empty for robbery/rape whatever.


Only you can protect your family, the police are not close enough to do so fast enough. The police are at least 7 minutes away.. A lot of raping/stabbing can happen in 7 minutes. They aren’t going to save you from a cracked out meth head, or bum or nutjobs roaming our streets 24/7 now.


Consider getting a surveillance system, security system and gun(s).


Teach your family how to safely use firearms, or at least how to use mace, and have it around the house.


Report weird characters roaming your neighborhood to the police.


Don’t turn a blind eye to the nutjob bum acting crazy. Call the police.


0

Calm down, chicken little. Violent crime in SLO is at an all time low. Back in the day, this town was one of the most violent and lawless towns in California with regular shootings, robberies, and rape.


How many times do you think random people try doors to see if they are locked? All the time. The only reason we know about this one is due to advances in personal security camera technology allowed the average citizen to catch guys like this on camera. 20 years ago, this guy’s attempt would never have been detected and caught. These advances in technology are making us much safer, but they are also increasing the number of crime attempts that we catch and publicize that otherwise no one would know about. Once most average people have cameras guarding their homes, less people will try crap like this guy tried and more of the ones that do try will suffer the same fate he did.


So sure, it might seem like there is more crime because we are detecting and catching more of it and the media is sensationalizing more of it, but in reality it in decreasing. But don’t believe me, look at the crime stats.


0

You are the one that really needs to look up the crime stats, or at least post where you are getting your numbers.


Crime is up significantly in San Luis Obispo in the last few years. This very website reported a massive jump in an article last year, and SLO is getting a reputation nationally due to the rate of increase in violent crime.


https://calcoastnews.com/2015/02/slo-makes-top-10-crime-surging-list/


http://247wallst.com/special-report/2016/02/16/cities-where-crime-is-soaring-2/4/


0

Both links you posted were to a bogus fake-news clickbait website called wallst247. If you look at the other articles on that site, they are all spammy clickbait articles like “1 Reason To Do This Before You Use Your Computer..” The article lacks any citation where they got the data and used bogus statistics to back up their joke article that is designed to drive traffic to their site rather than actually share anything meaningful.


If you look at the actual crime stats, you will see property crimes actually decreased recently. And everything is far better than how it used to be:

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/times-past/article39445320.html


0

“Once most average people have cameras guarding their homes, less people will try crap like this guy tried and more of the ones that do try will suffer the same fate he did”.


The death penalty doesn’t scare many criminals. And you think a $25,000 bail is going to scare everyone enough to reduce crime? Seriously?


There are some dangerous nut jobs in this town–and some very heavy drug users to boot. This town went to hell awhile ago–it has yet to sink in for some folks. But it will.


0

If the death penalty doesn’t scare many criminals, do you really think an armed homeowner will? Seriously? If a criminal thinks a homeowner could be armed, the crminal is going to use the element of surprise and shoot first, and ask questions later.


0

There’s a good chance that his travel route was recorded by intersection cameras. With any luck he may have been recorded in route to other unsolved crime scenes too. I know we hate all of this tech stuff but making our community bad news for thief’s is good news for the public safety.


0

You have got to be kidding. Nobody asked for the cameras that just seemingly appeared overnight at nearly every intersection in town.


It was the people of SLO who caught this guy, Not the Big Brother camera system we didn’t ask for- The woman who was victimized posted her own personal video on social media, and the residents identified him, not the police camera system.


A surveillance grid around town (and nation-wide), being done so without the knowing consent of the residents regarding it’s actual purpose, extent, and overall scope. Not to mention the cameras everywhere are quite the eye-sore and there appears to be no mean by which to get them removed.


City Council members won’t even tell the public what the cameras are actually for, and police won’t admit when/if the footage is actually used.. Seeing as how the camera system we have set up all around SLO Now can read/interpret license plate information it’s not a stretch to assume that data is sent to the NSA, and incorporated with the rest of the meta-data already being collected on every person’s cellphone locations.


0

Yes, I know they say the purpose is “traffic management”.. That’s just not the entire story. New Times covered the actual abilities of the cameras a bit about 5 years ago, and said they could be used by police and other law enforcement (IE NSA) Also, many times, if you drive up to one of the intersections with the cameras all over the place, and you’re the only car anywhere in sight, the lights do not change, so much for them being used to help move traffic efficiently, right? Light timing isn’t influenced by the cameras.. just another way to track, trace, and database your every movement.


0

Ok, put down the tin foil hat. If you actually read the New Times article, you would see that it said the cameras do NOT record and are not being used by police or law enforcement. If you think otherwise, then explain how video from the cameras have never been introduced once in any court case in SLO? If the police were recording the video from these cameras, it would be used in hundreds of court cases already.


0

Nobody asked for the cameras that just seemingly appeared overnight at nearly every intersection in town.

—————-

Wrong. Everyone who has nothing to hide did. You have no right to not be identified when you are in public.


Get used to it.


0

It was also stated last night that this guy worked for Crystal Water Delivery. I also heard that was a syringe in his mouth. Thank God they caught this guy before he could hurt anyone although I doubt this was his first attempt at a criminal activity. Good job SLO Police Dept and anyone who assisted with leads.


0

Ya think he will be a candidate for “Early Release”? Oh wait, most likely will never go to jail.


0

A syringe?? Why would he have a syringe in his mouth?? Ha! Let’s not get hysterical here. It’s pretty obvious he is smoking a cigarette – like most of the dirt bags in this town.


0

That was NOT a cigarette. What video did you watch?


0

It looks like a cigarette to me. Why the heck would anyone put a syringe in their mouth? That is just nonsense.


0

Most likely just doing an after-hours customer satisfaction call/follow up. Nothing to worry about really.


The syringe- likely some sort of beneficial nutrients for the customer’s teeth he was going to inject into the water filtration system, most likely trace minerals, or salt or – something really good for you, like Fluoride or something.


Here, a worker, is going above- and-beyond for customer satisfaction and working off-the clock, after hours, white glove treatment, and he gets treated like a criminal? Notice, he even cleaned the doorbell. This guy deserves a promotion, not the terrible treatment he’s receiving.


This was obviously a big misunderstanding. I bet they’ll find out she was a Crystal Springs water customer.. wait for it ;)


0