Flock cameras help in recent arrests
LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) – Lexington flock cameras helping in the arrests of numerous suspects, including the arrest of a driver who led officers on a multi-county chase on Monday. The pursuit of Glen McCormick started in Lexington and continued through Scott County just over the border into Grant County, where state police, the Scott County Sheriff’s Office, and Grant and Owen county deputies arrested him on multiple charges including fleeing or evading police and reckless driving.
“[Flock cameras] allows our officers to patrol in a very efficient manner and look for specific vehicles that we know are associated with people who have committed crimes,” says Commander Matthew Greathouse with Lexington Police.
Flock cameras are a hot-button issue in Lexington, many in the community are hesitant and untrusting of the technology. As Lexington police have emphasized many times, Flock cameras are license plate readers (LPRs) that don’t take video or photos of a person’s face, just their car’s make, model and license plate.
“Let’s say you’re one of the thousands of cars that passes a Lexington Flock camera and is never involved in the investigation of a crime. Well, after 30 days, that footage is hard-deleted and it can never be accessed again and that is completely automatic,” says Holly Beilin, Flock Safety spokeswoman. “So it’s not like this data is being stored for years and it’s not being used for anything else. It’s purely being used for crime solving by police within 30 days of being captured.”
This crime-solving tool has helped Lexington police in two big instances in the last two weeks, with the arrest of McCormick and with the arrests of Hunter Townsend and Keith Merritt after an assault on Versailles Road in early January.
In both cases, a flock camera alerted Lexington police that the vehicle they were looking for had been spotted in the area, so officers were able to narrow their searches for the suspects.
“We’re able to narrow this down and it gives us a very specific starting point with this lead to go investigate that crime. I do want to reiterate that LPRs are giving us just leads and it is up to the officer in the actual beat car to run the vehicle to make sure that it is still wanted, that the persons associated with that vehicle could potentially still be wanted,” says Greathouse.
Lexington police say the LPRs have provided 48 leads for investigations leading to 197 people being charged and 550 charges being placed. 75 more Flock cameras are expected to be installed throughout the city this spring. You can find a full breakdown of the LPR data in Lexington at the link HERE.
