Surveillance & Covert Observation

Surveillance is patient work, and it's most of what people picture when they imagine a private investigator. When you hire me for it, you're paying for time, discretion, and a clean record of what actually happened — not a hunch and not a guess. I'm Eugene Butler, a licensed Michigan private investigator based in Flint, and I conduct both mobile surveillance, where I follow a subject as they move through their day, and stationary surveillance, where I hold a position and watch a single location.

Either way the goal is the same: document the truth without ever being noticed. Most surveillance I take on starts with a simple, honest question. Is a spouse really where they say they are?

Is an injured claimant as limited as the paperwork claims? Is an employee running a side operation on company time? I don't decide the answer before I begin.

I set up, I watch, and I record what the camera sees — timestamped photo and video paired with a written log of times, locations, and movements. If nothing happens, I tell you nothing happened. That honesty is the whole point; evidence is only worth something if it's real.

In Michigan I work from public places where there's no reasonable expectation of privacy. I don't trespass, I don't plant cameras inside private spaces, I don't track a vehicle I have no legal right to track, and I don't break the law to get a result, because illegally gathered evidence is worthless to you and a liability to me. Good surveillance is mostly about blending in, reading a situation, and knowing when to back off so the subject never senses anything is wrong.

A burned surveillance — one where the subject realizes they're being watched — can poison a case, so I'd rather lose a day than lose your case. I'll be straight about what surveillance can and can't deliver before you spend a dollar. Some days produce powerful footage; some days produce a quiet record that rules a worry out.

Both have value. I keep the footprint small and the discretion tight, and I'll tell you honestly if a matter would be better served by a different approach. If you need someone watched, documented, and the truth recorded cleanly, call or text the Butler Investigations office at 810-513-0662 for a confidential, no-obligation conversation about your situation.