Posted on 08/29/2005 6:07:24 PM PDT by heleny
License plate monitors will help Arcadia police track criminals
ARCADIA -- Arcadia police officers will soon monitor every vehicle that enters and exits the city's mall and racetrack from the comfort of police headquarters, with a new technology that scans license plates and runs them through criminal databases.The technology effectively multiplies the reach of law enforcement without the expense of hiring officers, said Arcadia Police Chief Bob Sanderson.
The Automatic License Plate Recognition technology was developed in England and is distributed locally by Hamilton Pacific, a Pasadena-based security company. It was introduced in 2004, and mobile units are now being used on five California Highway Patrol cars in the state. The company also sells stationary camera systems to monitor crime-ridden streets and parks.
In Arcadia, police officials said the cameras will be in fixed positions at the Westfield Santa Anita mall and the Santa Anita Park racetrack and linked through wireless technology to the station on Huntington Drive. Mobile cameras will also be mounted to two patrol cars, Sanderson said.
The cameras scan every license plate in sight at a rate of up to 1,500 an hour, said Steve Reinharz, regional manager of Hamilton Pacific. In comparison, a diligent police officer might run 60 to 80 plates an hour, he said.
In milliseconds, the system runs the plates through a database of 110,000 to 140,000 stolen vehicles, searching for matches. It is updated daily.
Other databases of wanted suspects and vehicles used in felonies also are automatically searched. When a license plate on the street is matched with one in a database, an audio alert notifies the police.
The city of Arcadia has had federal grants totaling $100,000 approved for the systems, Sanderson said. They will be installed when the city receives the money, he said.
The mobile camera systems have yielded many stolen vehicle recoveries and arrests for the CHP, Reinharz said. In a 20-day test deployment, a CHP officer picked up 26 stolen vehicles and made seven arrests with the system, he said. Typically, a CHP officer averages 2.3 stolen vehicle recoveries and no arrests in the same time period, he said.
In busy seasons, Sanderson said one stolen car a day is retrieved from the mall. But it's likely that many more are in the area, he said. It would be impossible for a police officer, even if he was posted at the mall and racetrack, to identify all the stolen cars, the chief said. He expects the camera systems to register lots of hits.
"I can imagine that we'll be picking these cars up right and left," Sanderson said.
Lt. Darryl Qualls of the Pasadena Police Department's counterterrorism section said his agency might apply in 2006 for grants to fund Hamilton Pacific technology. The surveillance cameras would reduce the risk of terrorist attacks at the Tournament of Roses parade or Rose Bowl events, he said.
Pasadena representatives recently visited the Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department to observe the cameras in action at MacArthur Park. The cameras have helped transform the park from drug-infested to family-friendly, said Officer Christine Labriola of the Los Angeles Police Department.
-- Marshall Allen can be reached at (626) 578-6300, Ext. 4461, or by e-mail at marshall.allen@sgvn.com.
How long before they reference it with unpaid parking tickets, etc., and begin to use it as a revenue stream?
Steal a car, then steal a license plate.
The mobile camera systems have yielded many stolen vehicle recoveries and arrests for the CHP, Reinharz said. In a 20-day test deployment, a CHP officer picked up 26 stolen vehicles and made seven arrests with the system, he said. Typically, a CHP officer averages 2.3 stolen vehicle recoveries and no arrests in the same time period, he said.
The police in southern California can use all the help that they can get... Arcadia is one of the few remaining bastions of the old Southern California that was such a nice place to live.
Well, that's quite interesting. Also completely irrelevant.
Ok, so they pass a law saying its use is illegal ... you get your car confiscated ....
Crappy site. Hell on slow dial-up.
Are unpaid parking tickets an illegal offense? Yup. Can you have a warrant issued for not paying your traffic tickets? Yup.
And how is scanning plates, and arresting people who ignore the law is a bad idea? Criminals thrive on the indulgences of society.
With computer processing ability and storage space increasing so much, it becomes ever easier/cheaper to have systems link all sorts of big brother style records.
With these license plate cameras and red-light cameras, I just wonder what limits there are, if any. For instance, would it be going too far to issue speeding tickets by camera to all speeders on a road, similar to red light cameras? Can the government scan your license plates (or faces) and maintain records of everywhere your car (or you) have been, and if so, can they use the information to catch people for evading sales/use taxes on cigarettes or other purchases from out-of-state?
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