A new network of automated surveillance cameras meant to help law enforcement officials investigate crime could be coming to Shasta County and the sheriff’s office is holding a community meeting to tell residents what’s ahead.
The automated license plate readers are expected to help the sheriff’s office investigate cases involving everything from arson, adults reported missing under suspicious or unexplained circumstances and child abduction reports, as well as reports of stolen vehicles and general crime.
The community meeting will take place at 5 p.m. on Oct. 27 in the Shasta Lake City Council Chambers, 4488 Red Bluff St. in Shasta Lake. Members of the public are invited to find out more information, ask questions and share comments, the agency said in a social media feed on Tuesday.
However, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors must first authorize spending $550,000 for the program’s five-year contract, said Lt. Kody Bodner of the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office. Supervisors are expected to take up the issue at a meeting in early November, he said.
If approved, the automated license plate reader system, manufactured by Atlanta-based Flock Safety, would go live after that.
“It is brand new. This is huge for us,” said Bodner. In the past, he said, the sheriff’s office had used cameras attached to their vehicles. That older system, now obsolete, is no longer in use.
Cameras would be installed on the side of public roads in unincorporated Shasta County, said Bodner. The automated system could also be installed along private roads where the owner has given permission.
Use of the system would not violate people’s rights, Bodner said, because the license plate readers will be installed in public areas and “there’s no expectation of privacy on a public road.”
Exact installation locations will not be identified to discourage vandalism of the cameras. While footage captured will not be available to the public, Bodner said, an online portal is to be created so people can get limited information about how the department has used the automated license plate readers.
Flock has “quietly built a network of more than 80,000 cameras pointed at highways, thoroughfares and parking lots across the U.S.,” according to a recent Forbes article about the company, which has many law enforcement clients. “They record not just the license plate numbers of the cars that pass them, but their make and distinctive features—broken windows, dings, bumper stickers.”
The company has 5,000 law enforcement customers and lists 1,000 corporate customers, including shopping malls, the Forbes article said.
How Flock Safety works
The Flock system uses cameras to capture vehicle images and identify license plates which law enforcement officials can compare to their databases.
Funds from the 2023 Zogg Fire settlement with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is paying for the system, which could be another tool in an arson investigation. Officials could request information from the license plate readers to find out which vehicles were in an area at the time that a fresh fire was reported, said Bodner.
Having the technology back in 2018, for example, could have helped more quickly identify a man who was ultimately convicted of setting a series of fires in Cottonwood, Bodner said: “We would’ve found that commonality of vehicles being driven way earlier in that process.”
Similar systems are already in use in Anderson and Redding. Law enforcement agencies in Siskiyou, Trinity, Humbolt and Tehama counties are close to adding them, said Bodner.
Michele Chandler covers dining, food, public safety and whatever else comes up for the Redding Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. Accepts story tips at 530-338-7753 and at [email protected]. Please support our entire newsroom’s commitment to public service journalism by subscribing today.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: License plate readers could be coming to Shasta County
