Thanks to Cory D and BoingBoing for highlighting this one.
Not sure exactly what the larger lesson is, but the story's pretty funny.
An undercover police officer "chased himself round the streets" for 20 minutes after a CCTV operator mistook him for suspect.
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As the probationary officer from Sussex Police searched for suspects, the camera operator radioed that he had seen someone “acting suspiciously” in the area.
But he failed to realise that it was actually the plain-clothed officer he was watching on the screen, according to details leaked to an industry magazine.
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He added: "Every time the man darted in to another side alleyway, the PC was turning immediately into the same alleyway, but every time the CCTV operator asked what he could see there was no trace."
I racked my my brain for a pithy title for this post, tossing out gems like "I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me" and "I Think We're All Bozos on this Bust," finally settling on the Heffalump, recalling the afternoon Pooh and Piglet spent tracking a heffalump, which was soon joined by a woozle, then more heffalumps and woozles, never realizing they were following their own tracks in circles.
In a country gone surveillance-mad, with a CCTV cam for every 32 people, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.