Ridgeland will soon have extra eyes around the city to assist in criminal investigations after the mayor and board of aldermen approved an agreement with Flock Safety for the Ridgeland Police Department on Oct. 19.
Currently, the police department has eight automated license plate reader cameras around the city from the partnership with Flock Safety that started last year. The new agreement includes 12 more cameras, which puts the city at 20 cameras placed in strategic positions throughout Ridgeland.
“We place these cameras in locations around the city after analyzing our crime trends and areas where we have a larger call for service volume,” Ridgeland Police Chief John Neal said.
Flock Safety is a platform that originally started as a tool for neighborhood watch. The automated license plate reader cameras would be placed at entrance and exit points of the neighborhood for homeowner associations to utilize to protect their community. The company has expanded to the public safety arena and now offers its services to law enforcement agencies. While the current cameras in Ridgeland are being used for investigative purposes, Neal encourages homeowner associations to look into the cameras for their individual neighborhoods.
“If any homeowner associations are interested in learning more, we encourage them to speak with Flock Safety,” Neal said. “A benefit is the ability for these neighborhood communities to share their images with the local law enforcement in the area.”
One example Neal gave for how the cameras could benefit neighborhood communities is catching a porch package bandit. If someone, or a doorbell camera witnesses the theft and can give a car description, the camera can catch the car coming in or out of the neighborhood and provide valuable evidence to investigators through the license plate reader.
As far as the city’s use of the automated license plate reader cameras, the criminal investigations division utilizes the images the camera takes daily to aid them in investigations. The cases the cameras help solve range from retail theft and property crimes such as larceny or burglary to crimes of violence
“Oftentimes the patrol officers may receive a vague description of a suspect vehicle but by using these cameras, we are able to more accurately identify these valuable pieces of evidence,” Neal said. “We were able to utilize the cameras to provide evidence in a homicide from April of this year and this assisted the investigations division in properly identifying a suspect vehicle.”
The cameras each cost $2,500 with an implementation fee of $250. The new cameras will cost the city a total of $33,000. It is an annual fee and the recurring total will be $30,000 for the 12 cameras. The cost pays for the use of the devices and cloud storage of any images captured by the cameras.
“While not an actual officer or citizen, these cameras act as another set of ‘eyes’ for us and their deployment in the community serves as another means for which we can gather information to make Ridgeland a safer community,” Neal said.
