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Long Island resident Stephen Ruth recently decided he was fed up with traffic cameras. And then he decided to take action. Ruth tampered with the cameras, got arrested for it, and then bragged about the incident on Facebook, New York’s PIX11 reports.
How did police manage to track Ruth down? He conveniently posted a series of Facebook videos explaining how exactly he tampered with the cameras. “All it took was a pair of balls and a painter’s pole,” he explained. “I’m going to show you how easy it is to take the power back.”
Police said he used his contraption to push the cameras upward so that they capture footage of the sky instead of the road. He changed the position of four cameras in total, and police soon found him after receiving tips about his videos, which were starting to go viral.
Following his arrest, Ruth returned to Facebook, where he expressed pride about his actions:
To all the people thinking “why would he do that? Didn’t he think he was going to get arrested?” Of course I knew I would be arrested. I did it for the people who come back from war and get abused by these cameras. I did it because senior citizens are getting these, the same ones that went to war for us. These same seniors live in New York’s high cost environment and are being forced out of New York because of its high taxes. I also did it because every vehicle that you see with an out of state license plate is not receiving these tickets regardless of who they are. These same people live in our state and pay lower insurance rates because their cars are registered out of state under someone else’s name.
So far, plenty of people have expressed gratitude and declared Ruth a hero. According to his Facebook, Ruth is due in court Oct. 27. Let’s hope he doesn’t get caught speeding on his way there.
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