By Megan Kelley
Clarkston News Editor
mkelley@mihomepaper.com
INDEPENDENCE TWP. — At its meeting on April 2, the Independence Township Board of Trustees heard a presentation on the Flock camera system, a fixed automated license plate reader camera system.
To give the presentation and answer questions about the cameras was Ryan Elswick from Flock Safety. Lieutenant Richard Cummins from the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO) as well as Lieutenant Stephen Jacobs from the OCSO were also in attendance to answer questions from the board.
Independence Township currently does not have its own Flock cameras, however there are several hundred throughout Oakland County including in Orion and Waterford Townships, Pontiac and Rochester, said Cummins.
The cameras serve to provide information to law enforcement when crimes are committed.
“All the cameras have built in alerts that are fed through the National Crime Information Center which is the Hot List that’s managed by the FBI. That’s where you’re going to get those stolen vehicles, felony suspects, Amber Alerts, Silver Alerts,” said Elswick. “We also integrate directly with what’s called the NCMEC which stands for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. So, if you ever had an Amber Alert in the county or in the township, that’s automatically going to be fed to the cameras. If that vehicle passes a camera, it’s going to alert the sheriff’s office in real time that that’s an Amber Alert with a description of the vehicle, what camera they passed, so on and so forth.”
The cameras themselves are positioned on poles facing the movement of traffic and are designed to read the back of vehicles which means they can identify the make and model of the car, color, decals and bumper stickers and any racks that the car may have. This also includes the license plates, temporary tags and state recognition.
“We position them to just capture the backs of vehicles only – for objective evidence, so we’re not able to tell how many people are in the car, gender, ethnicity, anything like that. They’re simply used for objective evidence for crimes that might be committed within the township or it can also give proactive alerts to the sheriff’s office,” Elswick said.
In Independence Township, the sheriff’s office has utilized other Flock cameras in other jurisdictions in order to track down suspects.
In October of last year, the sheriff’s department was able to use Waterford’s Flock cameras to find the suspect in a bank robbery that took place on Dixie Highway in the township, Cummins said.
“The main benefits of a township that employs the sheriff’s office to provide police services would be: number one the Amber Alerts that I mentioned, those are going to be automatically fed into our system in real time. So, if you have that coming through the township, (you are) automatically alerted. We’re seeing a lot more Silver Alerts for elderly people that might have dementia or something like that, they get in their car and drive and get lost. We’ve seen that be super successful across the country. The cameras will detect stolen vehicles, fake tags, missing tags, felony warrants even down to sex offenders, violent persons, things like that,” said Elswick. “They’re also really great investigative leads. You have a theft in a neighborhood, somebody picks it up on their Ring camera – it’s a red Ford pickup truck. Now the sheriff’s office has the tools in the township to identify that suspect.”
Elswick also noted that once the cameras have been installed for a while, they can also act as somewhat of a crime deterrent because criminals will know they exist in the township.
“As of right now, Independence Township is fine. Everything is good. We don’t have any problems in Independence Township,” said Supervisor Jose Aliaga who had requested the presentation. “I think we need to be proactive and I think having these cameras will help the sheriff’s department to do their job. Giving them technology, they will be more efficient.”
Some members of the Board of Trustees expressed concern with the cameras potentially overreaching and invading people’s privacy.
To quell some of these concerns, Elswick reiterated that the company follows the recommendations put forward by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) including the recommended 30 day retention of evidence unless it is tied to an active investigation, a built-in audit trail that saves in perpetuity.
Elswick also said that based on how the cameras are placed, it is impossible to see anything regarding the occupants of the vehicle.
The board did not take any action on the presentation but is expected to bring forward a motion to purchase the Flock cameras at a future meeting.
According to Cummins, the sheriff’s office would like to order 12 cameras to be placed throughout the township. Ultimately, the board will make the decision on how many, if any, cameras are purchased and from there the sheriff’s department would decide where the cameras are placed.
Should the board decide to purchase the cameras, the funding is expected to come out of the sheriff’s department’s budget.