Authored By seanphippster

A local man found what he thought was a ballpoint pen in the restroom of a downtown bar last Tuesday night.

But it wasn’t a pen.

The tiny device was actually an HD spy pen that someone had strategically placed to capture patrons while in the restroom.

And the contents were disturbing.

The videos contained grainy footage of men’s restrooms from around the city.

Josh Neelands is a local freelance Web designer and photographer. His friend (who doesn’t want to be named) found the camera in the upstairs men’s restroom at Chattanooga Billiard Club downtown.

Neelands was asked to inspect the device and eventually plugged it into a computer.

“I wonder if I should’ve looked through it,” he said. “I thought it was kind of creepy.”

Neelands said video files started popping up in a file folder. He said at the beginning of each video a man can be seen setting up the camera, angling it and walking away.

“As I opened more videos, I realized the bathrooms weren’t just CBC,” he said. “There was one where there was a urinal and one of those fortune weight scales. It looked like a gas station bathroom. As I was scrolling through it, there was a kid on it.”

Shaken by the contents, Neelands turned the camera into the Chattanooga Police Department Sunday evening.

The owners of Chattanooga Billiard Club downtown were unaware of the camera at the time of the event and did not issue a statement today. However, CBC was only one of “many locations” featured on the video, according to Neelands.

Only men’s restrooms were recorded, Neelands said.

Recently, spy cameras have gained national attention.

Johns Hopkins Hospital was ordered to pay $190 million in a settlement after Dr. Nikita Levy, a gynecologist, was caught recording examinations with a spy pen camera.

He wore the camera around his neck during routine examinations.

Police found more than 1,200 video clips and images on 10 hard drives at Levy’s home.

Neelands worries the devices could be rampant throughout the city.

“It can happen anywhere,” he said. “I’m more or less shocked that someone would be going around in this area and doing that …. He could have three more of these devices.”

Tim McFarland, public information officer with the Chattanooga Police Department, said that police are aware of the device and are currently working to put details together.