Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
The latest safety committee meeting for the Oregon City Council on Jan. 27 brought a noteworthy addition to the community – approval for the installation of 12 Flock cameras.
Part of a nationwide mass-surveillance system that uses automatic license plate recognition (ALPR), the cameras will be placed in higher-trafficked areas in the next two to three months. The main goal of the cameras is to reduce crime, but officials reiterated that they won’t be looking for speeding vehicles or people running red lights.
Instead, the cameras will search license plates and vehicle descriptions, taking a snapshot of every vehicle that drives by. It will send real-time alerts to police when anything enters the city of Oregon. The hope is that not only will it help investigations but that it will also work as a crime deterrent.
On the side of public safety, the city doesn’t want to let people know where they will be installed, but once they are, people will know that the cameras are the city.
“They will be a force multiplier,” Will Pepper, the territory sales manager at Flock Safety, said. “Each camera is like hiring an officer for $3,000 per year that works 24/7, takes no sick days, takes no benefits, doesn’t miss anything and is alerting the (police department) of who is coming in and out of the city, which is going to keep the community safer.”
The cost of each camera is $3,000 per year. With 12 coming to the city, that is an annual cost of $36,000, but the bill for the two-year contract the city has agreed to will be fully funded by a federal grant.
Flock Safety, which is an Atlanta-based company with a little over 900 employees, works with over 4,600 law enforcement partners across the country in 49 states. Local departments and towns already using the camera system include: Toledo, Rossford, Perrysburg, Perrysburg Township, the Lucas County Sherriff’s Office, the Ottawa County Sherriff’s Office, Sylvania, Maumee, Sylvania Township, Holland, the University of Toledo and Port Clinton.
On top of that, Lowe’s Home Improvement, ProMedica Pediatrics and FedEx ground in Toledo have agreements with Flock, too.
In fact, an added benefit of the system is that with the addition of these cameras, Oregon will have access to the ALPR information the other communities and organizations are capturing - and vice-versa.
One example of the potential value of that came this past spring when a mail carrier was robbed in the Piccadilly East Apartments. Oregon Police identified a vehicle they thought may be associated with the crime right after it happened.
That vehicle traveled into Toledo, and because one of the Oregon officers was on an FBI task force, they were able to identify the vehicle, license plate and owner. They then got a search warrant, located the evidence and made the arrest – in large part due to the Flock camera system.
“If we didn’t have Flock cameras or if Toledo didn’t have Flock cameras, or if we didn’t have access to that system through our partnership, there’s a good chance that we may not have ever solved that crime,” Oregon Police Chief Brandon Begin said. “We may not have recovered that mail. We may not have recovered that key, which would have led to many more washed checks.”
In Oregon, the system will help with retail theft and provide a safer method for apprehension as opposed to high-speed chases. It will assist with Silver Alerts and Amber Alerts, helping to identify missing and endangered individuals where time is of the essence.
In 2023, 10 percent of all crimes in the United States were solved by Flock, and Pepper expects those numbers to increase once he receives 2024 information. He also expects there to be over 90,000 ALPRs in the country by this week, a number that is increasing by 1,000 per week.
Additionally, 80 percent of all crimes in the country are committed with the use of a vehicle.
Protecting privacy
Perhaps the most key concern of these cameras for citizens is the potential invasion of privacy.
Based on a report from KWCH 12 News in Wichita, Kan., a nearby town of Bel Aire voted against installing Flock cameras. One example of a privacy violation was when a Kechi, Kan. police lieutenant used Flock to track his estranged wife. He was later arrested and convicted of computer crimes and stalking.
Pepper said during the safety meeting that the footage is owned by the agency and/or the city. It will never be sold or shared by Flock. There is a 30-day retention policy and then everything is washed.
He reiterated that the footage is not used for monitoring; it is solely for investigative purposes. This will ensure that all data that is not associated with a crime – just people going about their day – is going to automatically be deleted and completely unrecoverable.
All data is stored in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) government cloud. There is a full auditable trail on all searches, and there will also be end-to-end encryption of all data. The company and its footage are not associated with registration data or third-party databases such as CarFax or DMV.
Real life examples
A report from WCPO 9 News out of West Chester, Ohio in the Cincinnati area reported that from November 2022 to October 2023, Flock camera usage in the area helped solve 15 thefts, eight hit and run accidents and two vandalism cases. It also helped lead to the arrest of 11 people wanted for various crimes and solved two shooting investigations. On top of that, a domestic violence suspect was caught on the way to a victim’s house because of the cameras.
ABC 33/40 News out of Birmingham, Ala. reported in July 2022 that stolen vehicles, robberies and homicides were being solved within an hour, sometimes minutes, in many cases due to Flock.
In fact, the report also mentioned an added benefit of Flock, which is that it helps police concentrate their efforts to areas that need greater attention more surgically within the community.
KWCH 12 News in Wichita, Kan. reported in May 2023 that a homicide suspect was arrested using Flock cameras, which helped identify defects and certain characteristics of the suspect’s vehicle from witness reports. On top of that, the cameras were able to help locate a murder suspect from Georgia that was hiding out in Kansas in April 2023.
