Centerville police said the cameras and data they collect are valuable tools to assist officers with criminal investigation and have proven effective in solving or providing leads in numerous criminal and traffic-related investigations
“These cameras can be useful to part of every investigation an officer conducts, whether it’s a hit-and-run traffic crash, a stolen vehicle, a missing person or solving any type of crime,” Centerville Police Chief Matt Brown told this news outlet Friday.
The automated license plate readers, or LPRs, are mounted to poles and capture a still image of a vehicle license plate number that go to a cloud storage system. That information is then fed into a database, which is connected to National Crime Information Center, a database law enforcement uses when entering stolen vehicles and missing/wanted persons.
The LPRs can send real time alerts if the plate number belongs to a stolen vehicle or one being sought by law enforcement because of an AMBER alert or other missing person alert, officials have said.
Police officers and dispatchers in the department have access to the Flock safety database and may search for license plate or vehicle data for official law enforcement business.
“Searching the database has become a normal step in the investigative process for our staff, and they rely on the technology to effectively perform their duties,” Brown said in a Feb. 29 interoffice memorandum to City Manager Wayne Davis.
The LPR cameras are “particularly effective” in conjunction with the traffic cameras installed at many of the city’s busy intersections, he said.
Flock Safety will be increasing its annual rates from $2,500 to $3,000 per camera, but offered to maintain the current contract pricing with Centerville in exchange for a 5-year service agreement.
Centerville City Council’s approval of the contract renewal with Flock will cost the city $32,500 annually for 13 cameras, which was included in the 2024 budget approved by city council.
Centerville is one of many jurisdictions throughout the region that utilize the flock safety LPR system. Kettering renewed its contract with Flock Group Inc. in January for two more years, while Riverside approved a five-year deal for stationary cameras in February.
In December, Dayton agreed to expand its use of the technology, approving spending $825,750 to acquire 35 new fixed-site automated license plate readers. The contract also covers the cost of maintaining 37 fixed-site readers that Dayton police already use. The agreement lasts through the end of 2028.
West Carrollton City Council, which first signed onto an agreement with Flock in February 2022 to lease five LPRs, inked a new, five-year contract for those units at the end of 2023, according to West Carrollton police. It also added five traffic cameras that have not been installed yet, police said.
Information reported by Staff Writer Nick Blizzard was included in this report.
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