Junior Kelly Feiten was running through Birmingham during a routine cross country practice on October 11 when something unusual caught her eye: an arm outstretched from the window of a yellow Aztec, holding a video camera pointed directly at the runners.
Rumors bounced from girl to girl, that a man might be filming their every action. The driver was first seen cruising up Pleasant, where the team was running, and then returning back down the same way.
“This guy was obviously staring at us,” sophomore Elaina Brown said, “I was in the front group so I saw him pull into a driveway [after he had driven by once], and he came back driving even slower.”
As one of the first to see the man, Feiten quickly told Brown that something was up.
“I didn’t personally see the camera,” Brown said, “But Kelly told me when we came back that he had a video camera and he was holding it out the window.”
After the encounter on Pleasant, the girls decided to write down the name of the license plate, along with vehicle type and color.
Feiten also managed to get a look at the man behind the camera.
“He was in his sixties with scraggly hair and round glasses.” Feiten said, “He was being really obvious about filming. He wasn’t hiding it at all.”
When they returned from their run, they gave a road officer a description of the man, his car and what had happened in full detail.
“It was only supposed to be Kelly and I talking with the cops,” Brown said, “But everyone was so interested in what happened, [the entire team] all kind of wanted to be part of it.”
The reports were handed down to the Birmingham Public Schools Police Liaison Ron Halcrow.
“We got a license plate, description of the car [and] registered owner of the car.” Halcrow said. “Later that night there was phone contact with that individual’s father, a Southfield resident. The information was given to me and I ran a background check on the suspect himself. [We] wanted to see what his motivation [for filming] was.”
Police records showed that this man had no previous criminal offenses but there was evidence of some mental health problems. Records also show that the man and his father were living together in the same house in Southfield. They denied to owning a camera of any kind.
“He was gone by the time the officers got a call this guy was out of the area.” Halcrow said. “But whether he was taking it [footage] of a home or of the runners kind of depends on who you talk to. I followed up on him and [from the records] I don’t think this he is any type of ‘serial stalker’ or anything.”
According to Halcrow, a number of similar incidents were reported last year in Birmingham.
“There was one case of indecent exposure where a women was jogging west born down Lincoln when an Arabic-looking man called her over to the car.” Halcrow said. “There was also another indecent exposure, not involving the same guy, in January or February to a student at Seaholm. On that very snowy day inside the Midvale parking lot that had a lot of investigation but no license plate numbers were given, only description.”
Halcrow said that incidents happen like this roughly seven to 10 times a year.
“I’m convinced that he won’t be back at it anytime soon” Halcrow said. “It may be a small percentage of crime, but it's obviously still a problem in the area.”
