Art of Surveillance

On the east side of Iron Springs Road, at the northeast corner of Ainsworth Drive, sits a perfectly ordinary T-Mobile store.

And right there on the same corner, staring north like a judgmental neighbor, is a Prescott Police Flock camera. Its view covers both T-Mobile entrances — one a mere 25 feet away, the other about 80 feet away. Every customer who pulls in to upgrade a phone, complain about a bill, or buy a new case gets their plate photographed, logged, and filed away for later.

Meanwhile, a quarter-mile up the road, Verizon Wireless sits unbothered at Iron Springs and Gail Gardner Way. No Flock camera keeping tabs on their customers.

Next door to T-Mobile? Baskin-Robbins. Apparently ice cream is not a public-safety concern. Just beyond that: Comfort Mobility & Medical Supplies. Medical equipment? Not interesting enough. A little south: Papa John’s. Pizza, it seems, remains a low-priority threat.

So we’re left with obvious questions:

What exactly did T-Mobile do to deserve this level of attention?
Did someone at Flock or the police department have a bad experience with their customer service?
Is magenta the new suspicious color?
Do they simply like T-Mobile more than Verizon — or like it less?

Official explanations will almost certainly involve traffic counts or convenient pole placement. But when one cell-phone store gets its own personal surveillance camera while its competitor and the surrounding ice-cream-and-pizza corridor do not, the universe is practically begging for a raised eyebrow.

Another driveway. Another set of plates. Another quiet reminder that the network has opinions about where you do business.