Man's Camera Tapes Neighbor Abusing Kids
M I L W A U K E E, Feb. 18 -- William Brookins hoped his new wireless security system would assist him in protecting his home and business, but what it revealed rocked him to the core.
After the Milwaukee businessman installed the system Sunday, he saw on his monitor images of two little girls standing still with their arms raised above their heads.
"At first, it kind of scared me. I was wondering if it was some kind of religious ritual," Brookins said.
Brookins, 57, had been been flipping back and forth between two of his cameras when he realized his own wireless receiver was picking up a camera signal from someone else's home. The crossed video signals were possibly coming from a neighbor's baby monitor.
Brookins said he continued to watch the girls, whom he did not recognize, in an effort to figure out what they were doing.
Then, he discovered why the girls had been standing in such an uncomfortable position for more than an hour and a half. Someone else was in the room with them.
The man said he watched a woman hit one of the girls when she tried to sit down out of apparent exhaustion.
Brookins said the woman hit the younger girl, just 2 years old, in the stomach. Later, she returned with a stick, striking the older one, age 4, in the head.
"I definitely decided to call the police when the child was struck. It was a little too much for me there," Brookins said.
But there wasn't much the man could tell police. He didn't know where the girls lived or exactly how his security system picked up their images.
Police said they were determined to find the girls with the information they had after responding to Brookins' overnight call.
"They found out that the radius of the signal was about 75 to 150 feet in an urban area," said Sgt. Kenneth Harris of the Milwaukee Police Department.
Harris said officers used that information to canvass the area.
Police Lt. John Andrews said officers searched through the night, going door to door, asking residents to reveal their children.
