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Spring Hill, Tenn., PD to Roll Out Street Camera Program

The Spring Hill Police Department in Tennessee has proposed a new street camera pilot program to the city it serves. The program, which uses tech from Flock Safety, is intended to stop criminals, not regulate traffic.

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(TNS) — Spring Hill Police Department is taking new steps to cut down on crime within the city by taking part in a new street camera pilot program.

The program was presented to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen during its Tuesday work session in which Spring Hill Police Chief Don Brite explained how the program would help reduce crime, increase citizen safety and boost the department's efficiency.

The ALPR system, or "automated license plate recognition," will be utilized as part of the pilot program Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based startup founded in 2017 as a way to help local law enforcement reduce crime in communities.

"This is not a red-light camera, not a speed camera, and it is not a traffic enforcement system that we will issue citations off of," Brite said. "What it is is a fixed mounted camera system that we will mount in a location."

When drivers pass by the camera, the unit will read the back of the vehicle and focus on the license plate. The information will then be sent off to what Brite referred to as the "hot list" with the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which would then be made available to any law enforcement department in the U.S.

"How do vehicles get entered in NCIC? Through law enforcement, if we investigate criminal activity and there is a suspect or vehicle involved, we can enter both the suspect and the vehicle information," Brite said. "Any law enforcement across the country that comes across this vehicle, if they run the plate it will come back as a 'hit.'"

The system could also be used to better survey crimes like shoplifting, which Brite said "happens a lot in this area."

"Especially at the Crossings, people go into the store, they shoplift, commit fraud. They leave the store, and the employees get a partial tag and a description of the vehicle," Brite said.

"If they call local law enforcement, we will take that information that they give us and enter it into the ALPR system, and when we pick the timeframe from when this happened, it will go through and say to look, for [example], 'a white four-door car with an orange sticker on the bumper, with a partial tag of 123.' It's going to go through there, pick out that vehicle, and now we have the full tag registration where we can start our full criminal investigation, and hopefully move forward in whatever the incident is and make an arrest."

Alderman Jason Cox asked if in the future local businesses or neighborhood homeowner associations could issue requests to become part of the program and offer partial funding. Brite said that those entities could request to be part of the program, which would fall under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with SHPD.

"What's unique about the Flock system is your HOAs or businesses, if they purchase this we can enter into an MOU with them, and we would receive their data," Brite said. "That would be up to the HOA or business if they do purchase this themselves, we would receive the data, but we are not giving any hard data to them."

Data will be stored for up to 30 days, and will not be open for public information. Brite added that no personal information will be transferred beyond the license plate, and the system does not identify the vehicle's driver. That process would still have to come through an official investigation with local dispatch.

"It does not go through the Department of Safety's license plate database," Brite said. "The only way we would get that information is if we actually have to go back and run the tag. So, if it does come back as a hit, we still have to verify that through Williamson County Dispatch."

Each camera would cost about $2,500 to operate per year, along with a $250 installation fee. Brite said the department is considering starting with "two or three" cameras during the program's first year, with locations yet to be determined.

With an estimated $5,000-$8,000 cost, the purchase would not require BOMA approval.

©2021 The Daily Herald, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.