Karen the Camera has captured the bizarre, the illegal, and the just plain funny. Her owner Amy lives along the Blue Line light rail in south Minneapolis and she joined Liz Collin to discuss the latest crimes her home security system has seen.
Karen the Camera, which has an Instagram account with over 11,000 followers, is a home security system of 12 cameras. Amy appeared on Liz Collin Reports last June, and this time around, she reports that while not much has changed, Karen has seen some firsts.
She left the last episode with a call to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to visit her neighborhood, but Karen the Camera has yet to see him stop by.
However, she has caught a shooting, a police chase, and large amounts of drug use and public indecency.
A few months back, the home security system was able to help police determine whether one or two guns were involved in a shooting.
“Karen’s video and audio was able to determine that there was only one gun, so there was no need to look for one that had been discarded,” Amy said.
The Metro Transit light rail system has been called the “most dangerous in America,” and Amy said her observations align with that claim.
“[Karen’s] been recording the drug use, the increased crime, and it’s only seemed to increase with time so I think what she’s seeing is matching the stats that have been released,” Amy said.
The “man in Karen’s life” also joined the episode and he agreed that the stats appear to be correct.
He thinks the light at the end of the tunnel is still a few years out, and things may even get worse before then, since people do not recognize the “insanity” of what is happening on the transit system and in Minneapolis.
Last weekend, he and Amy took the train on their way home from downtown. There was a used hypodermic needle in the seat next to them and a group of people smoking narcotics on the train.
“That’s just every day, what you experience on the Metro Transit light rail,” he explained.
He’s taken a more “hands-off approach” with the people he encounters on and around their property due to threats against himself and his family.
In October alone, Amy said she observed 18 incidents of people checking car doors, three incidents of people checking garage doors, and two thefts of Halloween decorations from their front yard.
Since building a garage on their property, Amy said they have added an additional twelfth camera and now have cameras with alarms and strobe lights that go off when people enter their backyard.
This scares off most people, who “kind of quickly pack up and head out” when the alarms and lights turn on, Amy said.
Metro Transit has been helpful with their requests, but there is only so much they can do to address “the BS” and “all of this nonsense” that’s occurring in Minneapolis, said the man in Karen’s life.
Metro Transit replaced a porta-potty that was stolen, which sat close to Amy’s property and was needed more than she realized. Karen began observing many more “pee and poo” incidents than usual, close to 10 times a day.
Many people have told them to move, but Amy said that won’t “fix anything.” They love their home, community, church, and kids’ school.
Amy believes everyone should want Minneapolis to “succeed and improve.”
“What’s going on just isn’t fair for people who rely on Metro Transit, who rely on public transportation to get around,” she said.
Shortly after this interview, the new porta-potty was set on fire.
Follow Karen the Camera here.
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Rose Williams
Rose Williams is an assistant editor for Alpha News.
