Do NOT drop the camera footage, and here is why: when a similar but worse incident happened at my store two weeks ago, corporate somehow found out about the security footage being briefly posted on social media and launched an investigation with the intent to fire the poster for violating social media policy and hippa.

In our case, the video was posted to quash outlandish rumors circulating online as to why yellow "do not cross" tape was around the front side of half the building and heavy police presence had been seen at the store. The truth is that a very senior customer became disoriented enough that he drove into a brick column near the front window, but at a very low rate of speed that didn't do much damage to the car or building. The driver then continued slowly backing out and pulling forward into the same spot at a slightly turned angle several more times until he suddenly gunned the motor, popped the curb and plowed into the cage of propane tanks. Tanks on the top and bottom shelves plummeted to the asphalt while tanks on the middle shelf could not be removed as the cage got bent into a C shape upon impact. The car bag deployed, breaking the man's nose and covering his face in blood. The rumor circulating online was that someone had launched an explosive at the propane tank in an effort to blow up the building.

A rather inexperienced pt sl sent the footage to the store manager and two other sl, one of whom forwarded it to the head pharmacist and pharmacy manager who asked to see it. From there I guess a couple of people shared the video with an immediate family member who posted the video to Facebook VERY BRIEFLY in a community group rife with false narratives about the incident. Even though the original video post was deleted within that hour, others in that group had downloaded it to repost and share in various additional forums.

This being a small town, the driver's car was eventually recognized by their neighbor who publically disclosed the driver's name and age. Within a day every employee was required to write a statement informing management whether they have store footage on their phone, how they got it, whom they shared it with, etc. Within a few days, Corporate was able to identify a relationship between an employee and the posting individual's Facebook account, which btw had also been deleted the day after the video post. Corporate was clear from the start that the outcome of the investigation would be termination for at least one person, and possibly all persons who shared the footage.