If there’s one community I know that can identify a car using only a blurry set of pixels from security camera footage, it’s the people who read The Autopian. This set of readers has done it before (on multiple occasions).
Once again, the police need our help. The Tewksbury Police Department in Massachusetts is seeking the public’s assistance in trying to identify the driver of a dark SUV that allegedly intentionally ran over a flock of seagulls in a parking lot, killing six.
All the police have to go on is a 20-second slice of security footage of the car driving through the lot, and it’s shot from pretty far away. Do you know what kind of car this is?
Here’s What We Know
The incident happened around noon Eastern time on Thursday, December 11. Police were called at 12:06 p.m. to 1777 Main Street in Tewksbury, which, according to Google Maps, is a strip mall with stores like an Advance Auto Parts, a Dollar Tree, a beauty salon, a cafe, and a hardware store.
Footage shot from the strip mall and published by police (above) shows the SUV driving through the flock of seagulls before crossing the rest of the lot and exiting the frame. It’s only towards the last few seconds do we get a clear view of the car.
When I spoke to a department representative over the phone, they told me they hadn’t yet identified the make or model. Their initial investigation determined that the car “accelerated before driving through the flock.”
I Have My Guesses
From the jump, it feels like we’re looking at a semi-modern SUV or crossover. Going by the general proportions, maybe a mid-sizer. The big headlights and badge suggest it might be something American, like a Chevrolet Traverse or a Ford Explorer, though there are a few Hondas that cross my mind, like the Passport or Pilot, too.
As far as security footage goes, this is par for the course. But we do get a great look at the car’s profile, greenhouse shape, wheels, grille, and more. I’m actually pretty disappointed in myself that I can’t pick this car out immediately.
This incident was brought to my attention via a reader who spends a lot of time in the parking lot where this incident allegedly happened, so I’m extra-motivated to get to the bottom of this. Here’s what they said in their email:
Nearly every morning I sit in that very parking lot with my coffee, reading The Autopian. Sometimes I even buy unsalted snacks for the flock of seagulls that gather there. This morning, I noticed something unusual—the birds were perched on top of a nearby restaurant instead of their usual spot on the pavement. I snapped a photo. Ten minutes later, I read that someone had driven through them, killing six.
As both an animal lover and a car enthusiast, I feel compelled to help. I believe this is one of those moments where Autopian justice should prevail. The community here is incredible at analyzing details, and I’m hoping you can lend your eyes and expertise to help identify the driver responsible.
I’m confident this community will have no trouble figuring out what kind of vehicle did this. There’s no place on the internet more knowledgeable when it comes to cars than this website’s comment section, after all. So have at it.
Top graphic image: Tewksbury Police Department
It’s a big suv driver. What would they care about the birds? They’re already living in a scorched earth manner, not caring about the future results of their decisions, looking at their choice of vehicle.
Irony?
What do you drive?
I’d vote Explorer as well
Definitely a Ford explorer, possibly an ST trim but I can’t guarantee that part. Since there are so many Police Explorers and general explorers around Metro Detroit, that shape has been burned into my brain and it was an instant Ford Explorer trigger.
Plot twist: it was a cop
#BirdLivesMatter
#PeckThePolice
#AllCopsAreBirderers
Ford Explorer
This comment did not meet our community standards and has been removed. – ED
Intentionally killing seagulls for the lols is actually a pretty serious crime.
I’ll bet that guy said what I came here to say.
No, it’s neither right nor legal to randomly kill animals.
And no – seagulls, AKA “sky rats,” deserve zero sympathy. If you disagree, you probably haven’t spent enough time at the beach or the wharf. If “To Kill A Mockingbird” were set in Gulf Shores or Dauphin Island instead of fictional Maycomb, Atticus would have told Scout to leave the mockingbirds alone, but to shoot all the seagulls she wanted, rather than blue jays.
So, just to be clear, you can either have sympathy for an animal, or you want to kill it – there’s nothing in between those 2 positions…
Got it.
(btw, I have spent plenty of time at the beach. Been pooped on and once had a seagull swoop down and snatch food right out of my hand. Was I happy about it? No. Did I want to kill it? Also, no.)
I live at the beach and you are completely wrong. Grow up
Really bad take here dude.
Live here in Al.
While I appreciate your “Mockingbird” reference, I have to disagree with you Joe.
Animals are just trying to survive. To say that they deserve zero sympathy simply because they annoy you is pretty shitty.
Nissan Quest?
Maybe around 2014-2016?
Nissan something anyway
Never mind, the contour of the bumper is wrong
Why are people such assholes? Here in God’s Waiting Room, FL, I saw an asshat swerve across lanes to hit an endangered and protected Gopher Tortoise and kill it. I reported the license plate to the Sheriff, but no idea if anything ever came of it.
No idea what the SUV for sure, but my first impression is Honda.
this is my pet peeve. turtles. now i get out and help them across in the direction they are going but humans suck.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/12/27/save-the-turtles-experiment-shows-that-many-drivers-enjoy-running-them-over/
You can adopt and care for endangered desert tortoises in Arizona.
I’ve done that here too.
Mark Rober did a video where he put a plastic turtle and snake on the side of the road to see what would happen. The good news is 94% of drivers kept driving. Of the 6% that veered out of their way, almost all were SUVs.
https://youtu.be/k-Fp7flAWMA?si=VAz6fpb-DMlftQxv
I’m shocked they weren’t all brodozers. The guy who hit the turtle in front of me was in a redneck pickup.
I’m very old school. The punishment for doing this should be getting run over by the same vehicle. Maybe you make it, maybe you don’t.
thats what happened here in that article i posted too. local clemson student made a rubber eastern box turtle with a replaceable plaster shell and put him on various areas of the road. a lot of people straddled the turtle but in one extreme case a truck crossed the centerline into oncoming traffic to run it over on the opposite white line. it takes 7 yrs for an eastern box turtle to reach reproductive maturity.
Lowered murdered out Explorer, consistent with douche driver.
I get this joke “murdered out” because the driver is a seriagull killer, out murdering birds.
I hadn’t even thought of that. 🙁
independent of the car, what a dick Karen move to run over a bunch of birds, really? ya feel good? pumped up huh! Showed those xxxxx (whoever you are battling) Attests to the nut-size brains driving these days
It’s more likely an “Alpha Male”
Anyone who refers to themselves as such in reality is far removed from it.
…someone who is tired of seagulls? Which is an extraordinarily easy thing to be?
No, I’m not defending the driver’s actions. But what I am saying is, I get it.
Surely there’s no one reading these words who feels the same way about, say, Canada geese.
I don’t really get it. How thin skinned can someone be to want to run over any kind of bird just because they have a reputation for being annoying? Ending a bird’s life because of a momentary annoyance? That’s kind of flucked up.
Someone who has watched too many Liberty Mutual commercials…
Liberty is far beyond a criminal organisation.
I would be pleased to provide documentation.
Yeah, I saw their bribery schemes
Anyone on YouTube over the last year has seen too many Liberty Mutual commercials.
Worldwide search. !00s ; 1000s of man hours. For 4
seagullsflying rats. Ok thenYou are free to not help if you feel that way.
Some people are decent human beings. Some people are you.
Some people have experience with seagulls.
That’s why they say such things.
I am some people.
Lived with them for over 50 years. Every day.
No issues with them at all, ever.
Unlike the assholes who seem to be in charge of our country.
Maybe grow up Joe…
Agreed. There must be no crime in this town if someone hitting a seagull is their big priority.
There might be more than one cop in that town.
One posting on social media asking for help, one mowing down seagulls.
Personally, I prefer burgeoning psychopaths be made aware that their behavior is not acceptable before they murder my pets, family, friends, or myself.
Seagulls ARE psychopaths. They are not acceptable to pets, family, friends, or myself. They are also none of those things. But they are psychopaths.
The projection is unreal. They’re psychopaths? They’re animals. They’re not capable of that. But you are.
are you okay
I was honestly not aware that a seagull could be a psychopath. I don’t think they can, unless you consider them stealing french fries as antisocial behavior. They’re animals, not people.
People can be psychopaths of course. Put one behind the wheel of a car and you get this… or worse.
Hey, it’s a crime that should be punished, and nothing I would ever do.
And I feel no sympathy for the suspect nor the birds.
People who kill small animals for kicks are often monsters of a different caliber.
It would be nice if the video wasn’t in the stupid Vimeo player that doesn’t let me maximize the screen.
Anyway… my money is on on a 2011-2015 Ford Explorer Sport
Here is the front:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/2013_Ford_Explorer_Sport_–_2012_NYIAS.JPG/1280px-2013_Ford_Explorer_Sport_–_2012_NYIAS.JPG
And here’s the side profile
https://file.kelleybluebookimages.com/kbb/base/house/2011/2011-Ford-Explorer-Side_FTEXP113_640x480.jpg
Right click on the video pane, select “copy link”, paste link into a new tab.
That’s too much work for me. My fingers are too exhausted…
My first thought was an explorer, but the headlights are wrong and the giant badge is in the wrong place. Those narrow marker lights between the headlights and fogs is throwing me off, the only one I’ve found with that is the honda pilot but i think the proportions are off for that.
I just looked. You can buy a 4k security camera for under $50. Why do all these types of pictures look like they were shot on a disposable film camera with a gob of Vaseline on the lens?
Processing and storing dozens of 4K streams costs more than that, the strip mall doesn’t sound like it would cough up for that.
The storage is generally the kicker. Cameras are cheap, storage is not-so-cheap for the quantities that a high def camera setup creates. In fact, I have a work engagement for UGA after the new year to install a whole new storage array for video for the football team. Probably a quarter million or so project.
For a security system it should be possible to capture a high resolution image of the changing portion of the frame and save only that on a periodic basis.
Then use a large information data base to pick out frames of interest. I suspect that is what Flock systems do.
Blurry picture, sharp faces, license plates, etc.
If that kind of system doesn’t exist, if someone wants to fund it, post a reply and we can talk about it.
Legacy tech that won’t be replaeced until it breaks.
This is the reason.
it is not the quality of the cameras it is the video encoding for storage. most commercial cameras are 4k or 8k or even larger format but then down sampled for recording to 1080 or even 2k res. typically 24fps or 30fps. Everything in the foreground is fairly crisp and clear i can tell they are using a good quality camera. However with a car in the background THAT far away its like a spec on the screen and it is MOVING fast which is going to make it even more blurry. also the video has been uploaded and compressed through multiple online platforms to reduce bitrate further. So you have multiple things working against it in this scenario: far away, slightly out of focus, fast moving, downsampling bit rate during recording , Video streaming platform compressions reducing quality further.
Source: i install commercial camera systems.
I could tell it was an Explorer from the tiny little photo on the landing page before even clicking on the article.
Same, not even a question.
The fact that police need help identifying a friggin Explorer that most of them drive tells you everything you need to know about Police in America.
Because it’s not an Explorer?
Agreed, but maybe it’s also the Code of Silence at work. Even if they thought it was an Explorer, ain’t nobody saying nuttin’ til IA gets involved.
You can literally see the ford badge on it.
Ford was my first instinct, but I had doubts.
Your context has significantly reduced my doubts.
You guys ever read your kids “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus”? I have a great idea what we can do once we find this clown. How many seagulls you think are needed to operate a midsize SUV? I’d even give him a head start running across the parking lot.
They have those little cars that rats can drive. Maybe something like that, but the controls feed servos on an actual SUV?
So, he killed a flock of seagulls, then… he ran?
How far? So far away?
(Can’t believe I’m first with these questions.)
Don’t they know
That they can run
But they can’t hide away?
From reading the other comments posted here, I think it’s because most people don’t want to make light of an animal cruelty situation.
Yeah, it’s somewhat insensitive. Thoughts and prayers for their families.
Damn, I did it again!
2019-2021 Honda Passport. Not pilot length, no brightwork and grey rims. You can make out the unique headlight shape, and the chunky combination turn signal & fog light units low at the corner of the bumper. This is not an explorer.
I agree — my eyes said “Explorer” but my gut said Passport. The big OE gray rims and oddly squatty/chunky proportions are not Explorer enough.
So be on the lookout for some moderately wealthy white people from age 55-70.
Wait, is profiling still allowed if it’s not the police doing it?
So be on the lookout for the spoiled douche son of some moderately wealthy white people from age 55-70.
FTFY
Bingo. Passport.
My first thought was explorer but it could possibly be an edge. I could see passport or pilot too.
It looks like an Edge to me. It’s more Explorer-shaped because the view is stretched horizontally up in that part of the video.
Before I read the article I said “That’s 2019 body style Ford Explorer.”
https://tewksburypolice.com/anonymous-tips/
Idk why it’s not in the article but here ya go
You’re not allowed to do that to sky rats?
I don’t even like killing real rats.
Pest insects that can carry diseases and that’s it. Mosquitos, roaches, flies, that sort of thing. I don’t even really like killing spiders even though my sister is arachnophobic.
I moved to a more rural area a few years ago and it’s changed my opinion on spiders. I’m fine with them.
It’s also changed my opinion of squirrels. No longer a fan. Not a fan at all.
Same squirrels are rats with good PR.
I cheer when one of them gets nailed by one of the local red-tails or coopers.
I won’t shoot them or run over them. I did trap a bunch that took up residence in the garage last year.
I moved to the south just before the pandemic, and I was surprised to learn that the locals make themselves feel better about living with giant roaches by calling them ‘palmetto bugs’
They’re giant flying roaches. Not a fan.
I stopped being a fan of squirrels the 3rd or 4th time they chewed through a wire for the thermostat on my car a couple winters ago.
Too bad manufacturers haven’t heard of protected wiring.
We had flood lights around the barn for when I let the dogs out. There’s a switch in the house to turn them on.
We had use of them for about 18 months before a squirrel ate the wiring.
I’ll re-wire them eventually with shielded cables.
Honda sells capsaicin infused tape.
Story is new formulated insulation is tasty to critters, depending on manufacturer.
Pure peppermint oil seems very effective and persistent at repelling them, though at least 60 plant oils available count as pesticides, including tea tree oil.
I had a single spot chewed by something and I suspect location was the attraction there.
Irradiated PVC heat shrink is tough and might keep them away, as might the glue and shrink type.
Living in the woods I may be a test case for rodents at some point?
Caught cats asleep on a Toyota cam cover under the hood once.
Peppermint oil needs to be re-applied every few days. It dissipates very quickly.
My barn is on the edge of woods and built like a barn. I’d be better off tearing it down and starting over than trying to keep critters out.
Maybe you’re getting something watered down?
I’ve been getting it from an importer.
Friend uses it for back pain and mousey resistance.
Supplier was shocked anyone uses it undiluted on skin.
We finally had the mechanic put some rodent resistant (possibly capsaicin) braided wire loom around the replacement harness and hung little bags of moth balls from a strut brace under the hood. One of the two solved the issue but not before about $500 worth of wiring work.
Worst cases are in thousands.
If you use moth balls, they have to be the naptha type.
I have barely opened the top and they did fine and lasted in attics.
More heat means more stinky.
Probably a few things they hate.
I hear steel wool or braid annoys them.
You used to be able to buy pepper powder called Squirrel Away.
Yeah mine definitely could have been in the thousands but thankfully the squirrels only liked one small sub-wiring harness and I only went to the dealer for one of the repairs which was probably $350 of work. The other times I ended up at a local shop for a much more reasonable rate.
The little bags of naptha mothballs worked great – just stab them a couple times like a microwave dinner and hang them in an area that doesn’t get too hot and you will get a minor whiff of them everytime you open the hood.
I did have a mechanic move one of them incidentally while doing work leaving it closer to the exhaust manifold and they melted away in a 10 minute drive home from the shop while dosing me pretty strongly inside the car too. Do not recommend!
Same here.
My late wife refused to kill spiders.
So I quit too.
My house looks like the Addams Family home after 3 years.
But I don’t mind a bit.
The combination of me being short, preferring dim lighting and having my eyesight fade a bit has led to frantic cleaning sessions if we ever have anyone over.
My house was built in 1880, so I consider the cobwebs period-correct.
Looks like a 19-21 Honda Passport to me.
Or Pilot, I can’t tell how long it is and that was the only real difference for those years
Pilot was my first guess, but I looked them up and they all seem to have chrome grilles. Passports have black grilles… and lots of body cladding that probably would have been easy to recognize if it was in any color besides black lol
See, I was thinking that it was a black edition because everything is un-chromed
Not that hard to swap or paint a grille.
I have this current gen passport – I don’t think that’s the vehicle in question here because the passport/pilot’s headlights aren’t as tall & narrow.
My money is on Explorer.
I fully agree. I do not think it is an Explorer.
Do we know the calls aren’t coming from inside the house? The looks an awful lot like a police Explorer.
The department issued an update that they are no longer seeking assistance with this matter.
Joke or serious?
I’m joking, but that thing does look close enough to an Explorer Interceptor that we may not be laughing for long.
I was going to ask if they had looked at the parking lot outside HQ. It looks 99.9% like an Explorer Interceptor.
The lack of roof rack made me think the same thing.
There might be a roof rack, but it doesn’t look like it in the best shot we have.
See also: behavior in rental cars
Sure looks like an Explorer.That big round emblem on the front end kind of gives it away.
This was my first thought as well specifically a 5th gen 2011–2019 Explorer. The grille badge screams Ford to me.
Agree, and likely post-facelift with the sport package due to wheels and lack of chrome. The fog light is larger after the facelift. (Edited to state later model years.)
They had chrome and black options both pre and post facelift. The headlights are definitely post-facelift, as are the giant corner-mount fog lights you pointed out. I say this is a 2016-19 Explorer sport.
It said Nissan to me, round and chrome
Yeah, and there’s only two kinds of people who drive Explorers, and youth soccer is out of season, so I’d be looking at theirs and neighboring departments’ patrol vehicles
“Awww, somebody took the H. Now how is anyone gonna know it’s a Honda?!”
–Supernintendo Chalmers
What’s the point of having a Honda if you can’t show it off?
If you look at a pic of a Passport, you’ll find a nice squircle emblem in the same place. In fact , I think the Passport emblem fits the bill better than does an Explorer. Also, the lights don’t match an Explorer, the wheels are obviously Honda alloys, the roof overhang, the grille, the window tinting is pure Passport, and so on.
BTW, blue oval, not blue round.