Mikayla Miller, a 16-year-old black LGBT teen, was assaulted by light-skinned teens on April 17th, then found dead the next morning. The assault occurred in the Game Room at the upscale Windsor apartments in Hopkinton, MA, a relatively new construction with a state-of-the-art surveillance system. A jogger found Mikayla’s body standing on the ground attached to a tree by a belt she didn’t own. Concerned citizens want to see the surveillance videos, but a spokesperson for lead investigator District Attorney Marian Ryan said police couldn’t get any recordings from Mikayla's building because of “technological malfunction.”
There are conflicting reports about the missing footage. Parent Security says, “The video system at the building was rebooted on the morning of April 19, the day after the jogger reportedly discovered Miller’s body, erasing any footage from the prior 17 days.” 10 Boston reported that according to a “note to investigators, a worker from the company that operates the surveillance system in Mikayla's building in Hopkinton wrote that it didn't save any footage for a period of about 17 days, beginning April 2 until the system was rebooted around 9:15 a.m. on April 19 -- one day after the teenager's body was discovered nearby.” We have to be absolutely clear about what happened to the surveillance system, and whether the Windsor is liable for allegedly failing to provide surveillance to residents for 17 days or whether they did provide the promised security to residents and merely rebooted the system on April 19th.
Things are very bad for Windsor Communities either way. The security system that protects residents is a selling point. I assume some residents wouldn’t live in a luxury apartment without security camera protection for two reasons. First, they are wealthier than average, therefore, have more property to defend against robbery.
Losing a $2,000 clunker parked in front of a slum with no video cameras is not the same as losing a $45,000 Audi A4 parked in a luxury apartment garage that’s supposed to have 24/7 security camera protection. Second, if they didn’t notify residents that the security cameras were off immediately after a major shutdown that’s deception. This would give residents a false sense of security who think that the electronic eyes above them are providing safety, so will sign a lease, allow children to play outside alone, park their cars at midnight, etc. that they wouldn’t do if they knew the security camera’s were malfunctioning. If residents were robbed of their life or property they are also being robbed of rent, because the high rent they pay includes the cost of the super-expensive security system. So, they would be paying for something they didn't get, and that’s robbery.
What happened? A teenage girl was brutalized by two assailants on their property and the next day she was found dead, possibly murdered, and maybe that occurred on their property also. They can’t advertise their place as “safe” anymore, especially if this happened because they secretly allowed the video cameras to go blank for 17 days. However, if the cameras were working and the Windsor erased evidence of two criminal investigations then they’re probably going to suffer even more, because that’s obstruction of justice.