Undercover Investigation: How Safe Is Bradley Airport's Parking Garage?

Two similar complaints. Two different viewers.

NBC CT Responds now has a better sense of security inside Bradley international Airport’s parking garage after we set up undercover cameras following safety concerns voiced from viewers.

Kevin and Margaret Burke of Guilford returned to the garage last summer to a seemingly never-ending key scratch on the passenger side of their car.

“That was definitely not there before we left,” said Margaret.

One year earlier, Michael Nieves, of Tolland, returned from a work trip to a similar surprise. 

“I came to get my car, wanted to go home and relax, and it just sounded like fully open exhaust,” Nieves said.

His car’s catalytic converter had been stolen while parked in the garage.

“I thought it was going to be the safest location compared to the open parking lot,” he said.

After Nieves called police, he learned the same lesson as the Burkes.

“I figured they’d have multiple angles of the damage done to the car,” said Nieves.

“After it happened, I looked around and figured, ‘OK there will be a camera,’” said Kevin Burke. That was not the case.

Bradley’s parking garage only has surveillance cameras at vehicle and pedestrian entrances and exits - this information confirmed to NBC Connecticut by the Connecticut Airport Authority, which operates Bradley.

“We were shocked. Especially nowadays, there’s cameras like everywhere,” said Margaret.

This is a stark contrast from the cameras NBC CT Responds saw monitoring rental company’s cars at the airport’s new ground transportation center.

“An international airport, I was just flabbergasted,” said Kevin.

The Burkes reached out to NBC CT Responds, less concerned about their car, and more bothered by the bigger picture here.

What if something worse was to happen?

“I don’t like walking in parking garages as it is. It is scary for a woman, especially, at least if the camera is at least visible, maybe it’s a deterrent,” said Margaret. 

This past fall, NBC CT Responds reached out to the CAA about these travelers’ concerns.

A spokesperson told us the airport is constantly working to improve their facilities.

“We feel the multilayered approach is the best solution to deter nefarious activity and the appropriate resources are already in place,” the CAA spokesperson said.

So, what does this multilayered approach look like?

Along with the select cameras, lighting, and physical barriers, CAA told us in the fall that state police patrol the lots and patrols are done throughout the day by the garage’s parking management company SP+.

So, we checked for ourselves.

NBC CT Responds set up a camera inside our parked car twice for a period of about 24 hours.

Here’s what NBC CT Responds found when we reviewed footage from our two hidden camera shoots:

There’s no question an airport truck passed by our car.

When reviewing footage, we witnessed it drive by 12 times during our November stakeout leading up to Thanksgiving, when we were parked on the third floor.

On a slower travel day in January, when we were parked on the fourth floor, we witnessed the truck pass by nine times.

But when we analyzed the data we gathered, we found major gaps in the frequency of these patrols.

In January, we saw gaps of five and then four hours, while we witnessed late night passengers arriving to their cars.

In November, we witnessed two five-hour gaps without a drive-by and after we saw one patrol go by at 5:15 p.m., we didn’t see another until 3:30 a.m. the next morning.

That’s more than a 10-hour gap.

During both stakeouts, not a single state police cruiser was spotted passing our parked car.

Retired FBI agent and now criminal justice professor Mike Clark doesn’t mince words about the lack of cameras in the parking lot.

“They still have a hole in their security plan that they should take care of,” said Clark, who now teaches at the University of New Haven.

“Criminals know where cameras are, they plan their crimes to be not on camera, not a shocking revelation there,” he said.

Clark says Mohegan Sun is a great comparison to Bradley’s garage.

People park their cars there for days at a time, too.

NBC CT Responds checked out a Mohegan parking garage.

We saw security cameras everywhere we looked.

“It's become standard practice, almost everywhere, in corporate America, and also in law enforcement,” said Clark, about security cameras. “Airport is a 24/7 operation, so you have people coming and going late at night, early in the mornings. And it's just, it's very surprising that they don't have those cameras in place for the safety of the customers and the employees.”

NBC CT Responds requested the number of times State Police were called to the garage over a one-year period.

From Oct. 3, 2021 to Oct. 3, 2022, troopers responded about 160 times for a variety of reasons like crashes, larceny and suspicious incidents.

But the Burkes wonder how much crime we’re not hearing about in the garage.

They told the airport about their keyed car, but they never made a report with police, concerned how much officers could really do without surveillance camera proof.

“You just have certain expectations these days about what the safety measures folks are taking and for a state facility like that to not have, what I would say, an acceptable level of security is just surprising and shocking,” said Kevin.

NBC CT Responds reached out to the CAA about the gaps in patrol we discovered and Clark’s take on security in the garage, too.

The CAA sent us this statement:

“The CAA is confident that the unfortunate instances referenced from 2021 and 2022 are isolated events, and the traveling public can rest assured that Bradley International Airport facilities, including its parking facilities, have a robust and multi-layered security program. The parking garage and parking lots are patrolled by maintenance and supervisory personnel very frequently, and law enforcement has an active presence at the airport at all times. Safety and security are of the utmost importance in an airport environment, and the entire airport community is also trained to always remain vigilant. In order to maintain the integrity of our safety and security protocols, we cannot release further information on the specific processes in place. Similarly, while we respect the opinions brought forward by retired law enforcement staff, we defer to the capabilities of the experienced airport personnel and the many law enforcement agencies that we partner with who are directly familiar with the airport’s entire security program.”

State Police tell NBC CT Responds Nieves’ catalytic converter was one of three stolen that week from the garage.

Who’s responsible when something happens to your car in the Bradley garage?

The back of your parking ticket you pay for says in fine print that “any car parked at this facility is parked at the car owner’s sole risk. ... And neither facility owner nor parking operator are responsible for any fire, theft, damage or loss.”

NBC Connecticut