ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – A serial litterer, caught on camera, is causing a lot of frustration for an Albuquerque property owner who said that person keeps dumping trash on his property and getting away with it. KRQE News 13 has the surveillance footage.
“He clearly doesn’t know that he’s being videotaped,” said David Edwards, who owns the property.
Not once, not twice, but three times in about a month—Edwards caught a man on camera roll up to his lot near Pennsylvania Street and I-40 in broad daylight, brazenly drop all manner of trash and debris, and drive off.
“Usually we’re there during working hours but this individual has gone outside of those hours so I get a notification and I can see him do it but we’re not there to intervene right at that moment,” Edwards said.
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The illegal dumper struck twice on April 20th and again on May 4. Fed up, Edwards filed a police report after the third incident.
“My reaction was mostly just to his attitude you know, it was so casual like it was his own property. And then something, too, about half-unloading it and then driving off and letting the stuff fall, that really bothered me too just because it shows even more of a disregard somehow,” Edwards said.
During his multiple visits, the man has dropped an assortment of household debris: like garden wire fencing, folding chairs, a standing fan, a filing cabinet, carpeting, and old wood.
Even now, days after the last littering incident, there’s still trash on the property. Edwards said he’s concerned about whether the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) will follow through because this isn’t a high-priority crime. “In some ways, the expectation with APD is so low that like I don’t expect anything,” Edwards said, “But at the same time, you know, I do think that the Mayor and the city are trying to address some of these smaller crimes as well as the big ones, of course.”
Edwards was able to get the man’s license plate on camera, and sent that along with the videos to police: “You know usually with security cameras there’s always something, like you never get the information: it’s blurry or it’s, you know, too dark or whatever but we were really lucky this time that we were able to get a clear picture of the license plate number.”
However, he still wonders what the police will be able to do: “We did have someone try to break into a car a few months ago and we also captured their license plate and the video of them doing it and submitted a police report but nothing came of that, and that seems like an even bigger crime than this, so I’m really curious as a citizen of Albuquerque what our expectations should be.
“While small, it’s so clear what happened. You know, they can see who he is, they can see what he did, and so there really isn’t any ambiguity,” Edwards said.
He said ultimately, he really just wants an apology: “My ideal solution would just be that he understands that his actions do effect other people. We’ve had to clean up his junk now for three times, so it would be nice for him to realize that his actions have consequences.”
KRQE News 13 is waiting to hear back from APD to see if officers are investigating the case, and how they will go about it.
