Following the City of Centralia’s move earlier this year to test 20 Flock License Plate Recognition System cameras to aid its police department with tracking suspect vehicles, the City of Chehalis on Monday night approved a year-long lease to test up to 15 of the cameras for its own police department.
Chehalis Police Chief Randy Kaut spoke to city council members during their regular meeting Monday and explained why he felt Flock cameras are needed in the city.
“We know that based on statistics nationwide, 70% of all crime involves a vehicle,” Kaut said. “Since 2019, thefts have increased in the city by 35%. That’s actually probably a low number. I think a lot of the stores, because they’ve been hit so hard lately, they don’t bother to report a lot of the thefts they have. They just report the ones they believe can be solved.”
He added on top of that, Chehalis has also seen an 84% increase in stolen vehicles.
Kaut brought up the Centralia Police Department’s recent success with Flock cameras during its initial two-month trial period, using the system to catch not only shoplifting suspects, but a homicide suspect as well.
“In that two-month period, they had 22 stolen vehicle hits with the camera system. They have recovered eight of those vehicles. They had solved 20 significant crimes, including a drive-by shooting, possible child kidnapping, three organized retail thefts and two burglaries,” Kaut said.
Flock Safety is an Atlanta-based security company specializing in automated license plate recognition technology. Cameras are designed to provide law enforcement with leads they need to start investigations by providing license plate numbers and vehicle descriptions, which include the make, model and color of the vehicle.
Flock Safety cameras aren’t completely dependent on license plate numbers, though. Using only visual vehicle descriptions, investigators can still track known suspects.
Additionally, the Flock cameras are tied into a nationwide network, allowing members of the Chehalis Police Department to search for license plate number hits in other cities with Flock cameras.
During public comment at Monday night’s meeting, Chehalis resident Leah Vanasse asked the city council if there was an effort to find the culprits of recent vandalism at four LGBTQ+ advocate sites in Lewis County over the past weekend.
Vanasse suspected it was committed by the same white supremacists who attempted to disrupt a Pride celebration in Centralia earlier this month.
“I’m not saying I know who did it, but the timing is suspect,” Vanasse said.
She added some of the vandalism occurred where people live in Chehalis and Morton. She said she wanted the city to make a statement of public condemnation of the actions as some in the LGBTQ+ community feared their homes might be targeted next.
Chehalis City Councilor Kate McDougall expressed support for Vanasse and said the biggest issue is a lack of suspects because no one witnessed the crimes.
During discussion concerning the Flock camera lease, Councilor Bob Spahr asked if the cameras could have aided with identifying possible suspects in the vandalism cases committed over the weekend.
“I can’t get too much into the case since it’s still an ongoing investigation ... If we had the (Flock) system in place we could’ve searched for vehicles that left the city approximately at that time and maybe got some potential license plates and identified a vehicle. It’s hard to say, but it’s possible,” Kaut said.
While the Centralia Police Department initially used the cameras for a two-month trial period and paid $2,500 per camera, the Chehalis Police Department will be paying $3,000 per camera due to inflation, Kaut said. Kaut opted to enter into a year-long lease for the camera system.
“I tried to get them to give us Centralia’s rate, but Flock wouldn’t agree,” Kaut said.
The number of Flock cameras installed throughout Chehalis could be as many as 15, but that will depend on where they can be installed as both the Washington state Department of Transportation and Lewis County Public Utilities District don’t allow extra equipment to be mounted to their poles.
Kaut said Flock offers to install poles for an additional cost. The city can also find existing poles it already owns to install the cameras on.
According to documents provided by the city, the annual cost for 15 cameras would be $49,500 with a one-time installation fee of $4,675.
Chehalis Mayor Tony Ketchum expressed support for getting the Flock system.
“I think it’s a great experiment. I think it’s money worth spending. We need more tools. You guys don’t have any tools left in your toolbox as they would say, so we need to give you some back,” Ketchum said.
The Chehalis City Council unanimously approved the year-long lease for the Flock Safety camera system.
About the Flock License Plate Recognition System
Flock cameras capture a still image of vehicles passing their location. Each camera is capable of capturing vehicles in up to two lanes of travel and is designed to best capture vehicles from the rear. This provides the best image and data on the vehicle while also preventing the system from capturing images of drivers or passengers.
The system is not only able to determine the license plate and state from analyzing the image, but it can also determine make, model, and non-standard features to help with a database search. Things like luggage racks, bumper stickers and window stickers are all searchable when using the system. To prevent the system from being misused, anyone performing a search is required to provide a reason and relate the search to a specific criminal investigation. A log can then be regularly reviewed by the department as part of an auditing process. All data is kept for 30 days from the time of its capture before being automatically removed from the system.
Cameras are normally installed to capture outbound traffic for database searches and inbound traffic to provide alerts for officers. To cover all the major roads leading into Chehalis, nine cameras would be needed to capture images for database searches and an additional six would be needed to provide wanted vehicle alerts for the primary city entry points. Flock requires a minimum of five cameras be used to provide the service and cameras are normally affixed to an existing utility pole or if one isn’t available, an installed pole. The cameras are powered using a solar panel. Since this is an annual contract, the number of cameras can be increased or reduced at the time of the lease renewal.
This system is used by numerous police departments across Washington and information captured is shared between agencies. During their trial period, Centralia was able to locate a suspect vehicle at a residence in Tukwila since they also use this system.
— Source: City of Chehalis council meeting agenda
