Brentwood License Plate Reader Program Already Making Impact

The Brentwood Police Department is now utilizing a new tool to help solve crimes and recover stolen vehicles.

Police Lieutenant Tim Herbert provided an update on a pilot program approved last July which allowed the police department to utilize LPRS cameras to capture license plate data.

The cameras capture both parked and moving vehicle license plates and data includes date, time, camera location and GPS coordinates along with a photograph.

In total, the Police Department will install a total of 20 license plate reader cameras which included 4 fixed camera locations, 4 patrol cars out fitted with 2 cameras each, and 1 mobile trailer out fitted with 2 cameras. If these LPRS cameras were deemed successful at the conclusion of the pilot project, more LPRS cameras would be purchased.

“Once the license plate is scanned, they are checked through multiple systems such as stolen vehicles, vehicle license system, felony vehicle system, and FBI hot list,” explained Herbert. “If the vehicles get a hit such as stolen or wanted, the officer will then check the plate to ensure it scanned the proper plate through dispatch and then determine if some kind of action is needed.”

Herbert added that all scans are stored for 1-year and are automatically purged on their university date.

To date, the four fixed locations have scanned 4,511,431 total license plates. The goal of those locations was to scan as many plates as possible explained Herbert.  Meanwhile, license plates on vehicles have scanned 1,048,409 license plates.

In total, they are scanning 1.15 million plates per month. On average, it’s anticipated to scan a total of 13.8 million plates per year.

As of April 27, the Brentwood Police Department has had 40 stolen vehicles recovered using the LPRS system while 25-arrests have been made. Overall, 70 stolen vehicles have been identified through the LPRS – 30 of the 70 vehicles detected were not recovered.

Additionally there have been several cases where the LPRS system has assisted in the apprehension of several suspects. In fact it has become part of standard practice for officers to check the LPRS system for vehicle scans during their investigations.

According to Herbert, although they are scanning a lot of plates, for example, he says of 6-million scans, maybe 2,200 are actual hits of potential problems which are in real-time.

“From the perspective of stolen vehicles, it’s been a great assistance. We now have the eyes of the LPRS consistency scanning. We can then go back on crimes and pull data as needed such as locations and times. It can also verify someone who claims to have an alibi, but there car was not where they said it was,” explained Herbert. “In some cases we can search by type of vehicle and date and time or can base it on date and time. If we have a license plate number, it will show everywhere it’s been scanned.”

He was quick to point out that just because a vehicle is flagged, it does not give them the legal right to pull the vehicle over in most cases, that they legally have to have a reason to stop a vehicle such as a wanted warrant.

He used a recent example how they used the system to pick up a wanted female who they gave her the opportunity to turn herself in which she did not. They used the system to locate her on a warrant and took her into custody without incident.

In another case, a business owner was punched in the face during a petty theft.

“We had a shoplifter at one of our local businesses. When he went to stop the person, the subject punched the clerk in the face and took off. He was able to get the plate and we entered that plate into the system as a felony vehicle and it got picked up on the LPRS cameras on Highway 4 and CHP picked up the car,” explained Herbert.

Herbert also highlighted how the LPRS cameras also helped with a recent high speed chase which began with the stolen vehicle getting flagged on their system and officers entered pursuit on a vehicle traveling 100-mph. The driver was eventually caught by CHP after Brentwood terminated pursuit due to safety reasons.

“It’s extremely valuable to have this system,” says Herbert. “Some officers were apprehensive about it in the beginning, but now it’s the only vehicles they will drive because of those. Other officers are not thrilled about driving the cars, but they like the back end to help establish timelines with their cases which for them is important because they are solving more crime using analytics. For solving crime in general it’s been a great asset which is why we will expect the program.”

The ultimate goal says Herbert is that there will be a synergy of license plate readers and cameras in East County (Highway 4, Antioch and Pittsburg) so the message will become do not commit crime in East County.

The other benefit is officers do not have to read the plate, give it to dispatch, or wait to get the data back because it’s all instant.

He estimates that to run a plate verbally it could be about 90-seconds while an officer can run a plate from his computer in about 2-minutes. He says the system saves a lot of staff hours.

“It cuts down on time, it frees up officers to be more vigilant in observation around them, the LPRS do not discriminate, they don’t care what kind of vehicle it is, just looking at plates and running them through the system,” says Herbert.

He added.

“Our goal is to protect our citizens as best we can, by having this data gathered at our disposal is key,” explained Herbert. “We are using all the tools available to us to help prevent auto thefts and crime in general by gathering the data for future use. The public needs to understand the data collected is extremely limited at best. It points us in the right direction in solving a crime if it’s not a stolen vehicle. This is not big brother watching, this only gathers data, time, GPS location and takes a picture of the license plate which is only retained for a 12-month period before it falls out of the system.”

In the next few months, Brentwood could have as many as 9 vehicles by summer 2017 with the system as they are looking at ways to best expand the program. They are looking at either outfitting more vehicles or selecting fixed locations for installations.

Current fixed camera locations include:

• Walnut Ave @ Armstrong N/B and S/B,.
• Sand Creek Rd W/B and E/B.
• Brentwood Blvd @ Valdry Ct.
• Brentwood Blvd @ Grant St.

The idea is to add more cameras and right now they are looking at the entire department on whether or not to place fixed locations to cover every major entry point into the city to capture all plates coming in and out or to outfit more vehicles.