SURVEILLANCES: ARE YOU REALLY BURNED?

Especially to a new person just starting out in surveillance work, one of the big questions that comes up often in a tail is, am I burned?  Has the subject made me?  Here’s two incidents that happened to me which may be of help to you.  When I was a young police officer, I was able to get a loan to my division’s narcotic unit.  I was fortunate to work with some exceptional dope cops there who had the patience to teach me their trade.  On my first vehicle surveillance we were following a couple of amphetamine abusers or ‘tweekers.’  They drove erratically, pulling over for no reason, making u-turns, and just doing things that to a new-be like me I just knew we were burned.  The veteran detective I was with just told me to stay on them and keep following them.  Eventually we arrested them, and when we interviewed them I was shocked to learn they had no idea they were being followed.  The second incident happened after I retired and was working as a PI.  I had been hired by a client on a cheating spouse case.  I followed the errant spouse to a swap meet and some other locations and at some point he made a U-turn in the middle of a busy street.  I was able to pick him up again, eventually following him to a residence where picked up his girlfriend and went shopping with her.  The point is, most of the time on a surveillance the subject has no idea he/she is being followed.  In the first incident, the veteran detective told me that ‘tweekers’ always drive crazy.  In the second incident, I had the job experience to feel that even though the subject made a u-turn, he wasn’t looking back in his rear view mirror or turning around to look directly at my vehicle.  I stayed on him, got good photographs, and had one satisfied client.