PLANO, Texas — Following the arrest of an ex-firefighter who's now accused of placing a hidden camera in the restroom of his own station, surveillance experts said covert lenses aren't so uncommon anymore.
Craig Lawrence, a former firefighter for Dallas Fire-Rescue, now faces one charge of attempted invasive recording.
According to arrest documents, Lawrence allegedly placed a small camera, which doubles as a USB charging device, in a downstairs bathroom of DFR Station 11.
Several Station 11 firefighters, including the station's captain, expressed concerns to police that their family members may have been recorded or photographed by the hidden device, an affidavit said.
The device had been at Station 11 since at least Thanksgiving Day 2018 when it was discovered by another firefighter, police said.
A search of Lawrence's Kaufman County home found a container of “sexually related props” as well as “a hand-drawn caricature of a Dallas firefighter sitting on the toilet with his pants down,” according to arrest documents.
Lawrence’s web history allegedly included several “voyeur” porn sites, including sites showing “what appeared to be footage from hidden cameras in bathrooms of women using the restroom.”
On Feb. 8, Lawrence told police he bought the device to “determine who was rummaging through his duffle bag at work” and that it was placed in the bathroom by accident, the affidavit reads. It said he first told police he didn’t have a laptop and later said his laptop had been broken and he threw it away.
The storage card inside the camera device was damaged and no data could be collected from it, arrest documents reads.
Lawrence resigned from DFR on Jan. 24 and is now a firefighter in Wilmer. He's now on administrative leave, however, since his arrest.
"THEY'RE MORE PREVALENT THAN EVER"
WFAA looked at some hidden cameras currently on the market, including the kind police say Lawrence had, and chances are you would never notice them.
Michael Dear, President of Spy Centre Security in Plano, sells hidden cameras in his store and online.
Dear has lived and breathed sneaky lenses since 1993 when he opened his business in the metroplex.
"Back then, I was one of the few people who sold them," Dear said. "Now, they're getting mass produced overseas, they're being made smaller, and the costs are going down."
"We have the biggest selection that we've ever had, and our prices are the lowest we've ever had."
Dear has helped customers catch thefts in the workplace, along with both child and elderly abuse.
In his Plano shop, he sells hidden cameras disguised as clock radios, phone chargers, glasses, car key fobs, internet routers, pens, picture frames, and Bluetooth speakers just to name a few.
Most of them have WiFi installed and can be accessed through an app on a mobile phone, too.
"If you have a suspicion your child is being neglected, that's a paying point," Dear said. "If you're losing profits at work, that's a paying point. People often come here with good intentions."
And because of that, he said hidden cameras can be helpful. But Dear also said that they can be abused.
Because of that, Dear shared some tips about how to spot hidden cameras.
First, he said the easiest giveaway is spotting a lens on an ordinary device or even a port for an SD card which would hold the footage.
"That's a pretty big tip that this is something more than the appliance actually is," Dear said.
But some cameras are harder to see than others. In those instances, Dear actually sells a camera spotting lens with a blinking red LED light. When you look through the lens, you can see the light bouncing off the lens itself.
"You're looking for a reflection off the lens, it's really easy it just pops," Dear said.
One of those devices runs under $100. But the best thing you can have is knowledge, Dear said.
For him, just knowing these products exist is worth more than anything.
"Unfortunately, people can use these cameras for good and bad reasons," Dear said.