HUTCHINS—In May of this year, the City of Hutchins’ Police Department successfully partnered with ADESA Auto Auction to install Flock cameras on Lancaster Hutchins Road.
ADESA paid for the cameras, and ADESA granted the police department exclusive access to these cameras for investigative purposes.
After installing these cameras, Hutchins Police Chief Steve Perry realized how beneficial these cameras were to the city overall, and last month, he presented the Hutchins City Council with his proposal to add additional Flock safety cameras inside the city.
Perry said, “Flock LPR cameras capture license plate information, which is compared to stolen vehicles, wanted persons, and missing person data, entered into the State of Texas TCIC/NCIC database.”
He explained that the camera hits generated from license plate information are then passed on to the officers working patrol assignments. Additionally, criminal investigators can use this technology to examine vehicle data captured by LPR cameras to investigate crimes.
On July 1, the Hutchins City Council unanimously approved a resolution allowing the City Administrator to enter a two-year contract with Flock Safety to provide additional license plate reader cameras in Hutchins.
With the approval of this resolution, Flock Safety and the City of Hutchins will install eight additional automatic license plate reader cameras on arterial roadways.
Perry said in addition to the cameras previously installed on Lancaster Hutchins Road the new cameras will be installed on JJ Lemon Road, Dowdy Ferry Road, IH-45 at Palestine, Wintergreen Road, and on the frontage road of IH-45 N.
“In addition to these stationary cameras, the city will also have three patrol cars coming online in the fall of 2024 with LPR technology,” Perry added. “This partnership is through Motorola and vigilant LPR. This in car technology is directly tied into the video camera system and will allow us to have moving patrol monitoring of license plate hit data.”
Several independent studies suggest that using FLOCK cameras lowers crime. Perry explained that these studies have identified that over 700,000 crimes are solved each year utilizing flock cameras, and when compared to FBI statistics, the reduction nationally is a 9.1% reduction in crime across the United States utilizing LPR technology.
Hutchins PD first became aware of this technology a few years ago.
“Although we have not had direct access to Flock or Vigilant LPR technology we have worked with other agencies in the area that do have direct access to these systems,” Perry said. “As an example of how this technology has helped our criminal investigations unit, a tow truck picked up a Porsche Pan America from the ADESA Auto Auction. Investigators were able to search data from license plate reader cameras in the DFW area and locate the vehicle passing through multiple LPR cameras in the Dallas area. Investigators were then able to obtain a license plate information from the tow truck and find an address in the City of Dallas that led to the recovery of the vehicle valued at $50,000.
Hutchins PD’s 24-month renewable term is a new project for the 2024-2025 budget year. It aims to give the police department more tools to solve crime and keep Hutchins’s citizens safe.
The program will cost $58,000 over the two years paid by the city’s general fund.
“The partnerships that the City of Hutchins has made with Flock safety and Motorola is a proactive approach aimed at keeping our city safe and giving our officers the necessary tools to effectively do their jobs,” Perry concluded.
