海角社区官网

One mystery solved, but the big whodunit 鈥� or rather who cut it 鈥� still remains. The saga of the Parkside Drive speed camera has taken a new twist, as the Star has received exclusive video footage of the fifth time it was cut down in May.

The Parkside Drive speed camera is the city’s most prolific, issuing over 70,000 tickets and over $8 million in fines since it was installed in April 2022. It has also become a symbol and target of people’s rage against speed cameras, as it has been cut down six times since last November.聽

The footage was captured by a trail cam聽put up by Penner, who said he鈥檚 a concerned citizen who decided to take surveillance matters into his own hands.

鈥淚 jokingly told my friends I was setting up a detective agency and I was going to solve these Batman-style problems ... the city can’t handle it, so they go to this vigilante justice to solve the matter,鈥� said Penner, 44, who works as a software developer.聽

Penner doesn’t live on the street, but lives in nearby Bloordale. He said he actually had two solar powered trail cams up. The Star enhanced the footage and brightened it. It鈥檚 taken from around 2:20 a.m. on May 23.

鈥淲hat the footage shows is somebody setting up like a short ladder that’s about three feet high. They climb up it with a tool in their hand that looks like a sawzall. It doesn’t take them probably more than 10 seconds and the camera drops. And then, this is probably the most interesting clue, the person jumps from the top of the ladder to the ground in a way that probably only someone in their 20s or younger would do,” said Penner.聽

This is the g down the Parkside camera has been captured. The Star received video of the third time it was being cut down. That time, the camera was then dragged to the nearby Duck Pond and thrown in the water, where it eventually froze. City staff and Verra Mobility personnel had to retrieve the device from the water.

As for the most recent instance the camera was cut down and left behind, Penner said he retrieved the cameras, so he does not have footage of the sixth time it was taken down in July.聽

Penner said after he got the footage 鈥� which does not show the assailant鈥檚 face at all 鈥� he reached out to the 海角社区官网Police non-emergency line and also Crime Stoppers, but after being put on hold for lengthy periods both times, he gave up.

Penner, a father of two, admits he’s a fan of the speed cameras, even though he’s been caught by one closer to his home a few times.聽

鈥淚 like the speed cameras. I’ve been nailed a few times, there’s one closer to me on Dufferin, which has totally slowed down traffic very successfully, which I appreciate that as someone who has kids in the neighbourhood,” said Penner.

He said while it seems that the person that initially took down the Parkside camera has inspired copycats across the city, he hopes that his actions inspire other people to show their support and protect the cameras.聽

“I pick and choose my battles and because I live in a school zone, I see people speeding through the school zone every day and I’ve never seen a valid reason for it. So I picked this battle because this is really important to me,” said Penner.聽

He thinks that rather than look to the city or the police for help, people should ask, what more can they do?

“It’s clearly very easy for one single person to go up to a speed camera and cut it down. I would love to see people doing more things in support of them,” said Penner.聽

The Parkside speed camera was reinstalled for the seventh time on Aug. 11. As of publication, it’s still standing.