Police cameras coming to Perkins

PERKINS TWP. — In an effort to deter crime involving stolen cars and find missing people, Perkins Township officials partnered with a company to more easily locate them. During Tuesday's public meeting, trustees approved a $66,000 contract with a company known as Flock Safety. The deal calls for company representatives to install 15 license plate readers, which act as cameras, on Perkins' busiest roadways, namely Hayes Avenue (Ohio 4) Milan Road (U.S. 250) and Perkins Avenue. Flock contracts with roughly 1,000 other police departments nationwide such as in Cuyahoga and Lorain counties as well as Port Clinton. Employees of Flock also work with private companies to place these black pole devices, each topped with a solar panel, in strategic locations. This would include the Sandusky-area Great Wolf Lodge in Perkins Township. Regarding the ones operated by police departments, they act as public portals for participating agencies. For instance, Perkins police can access not only cameras in their jurisdiction but others across Flock's entire database, about 150,000 in total. "We can solve a lot more cases with this system and collaboration," said Perkins police Chief Jeff Musser, who's researched these cameras since becoming chief in February. "We are hearing from the bigger counties around us that they are solving a lot more crime, and this also prevents it from coming in." Following the first year, Perkins' cost to operate Flock cameras drops. After the initial $66,000 investment, it'll cost $45,000, broken down to $3,000 a camera. The money comes from Perkins police's budget. What they won't do Before explaining what they do, Musser stressed what these cameras won't do. "These are not red light cameras. These are not speed cameras. They have nothing to do with traffic," he said. "This is a significant tool to help us reduce and solve crimes and be more efficient in doing so. It will help so much for our investigations." Limitations do exist for sharing and spreading this information. For instance, they're not considered public records as these images are part of ongoing investigations. "Flock doesn't own any of these images," Musser said. "They are owned by the individual departments, and no images will ever be sold to a third party. After 30 days, the images are deleted from our database." Plus officers who access the information can't abuse this system. If they do, there will be repercussions. "There will be an audit system in place," Musser said. It's also not a tool to spy on drivers and passengers, Musser said. "There will be no images of people," Musser said. "There will be occasions where people will be walking or on bicycles who will get caught because these cameras are motion-activated. But none of these cameras have facial recognition." What they'll do Musser, along with Perkins police Detective Joe Rotuno and township administrator Gary Boyle, explained what these license plate readers focus on: • AMBER Alerts for abducted children — "If there is an AMBER Alert from Ohio, once that car goes by one of our Flock cameras, our people working the road will immediately be notified if it's here in the township," Musser said. • Silver Alerts for missing senior citizens — "People that have dementia or Alzheimer's that have wandered off, we can more easily find them with the cameras than without them. We can know the direction they went and, if outside of our jurisdiction, we can reach out to other law enforcement departments and try to find them," Musser said. • Stolen vehicles • Robberies • Abductions • Shootings • Large-scale fraud schemes involving multiple people Quite often, when an incident like a robbery occurs, victims, witnesses and bystanders don't know the suspect's license plate. But they can often give descriptions of the car involved: the make, model and color. So, for instance, if a witness indicates a red Ford Focus robbed a bank and then traveled south down Milan Road, officers can add those details into a camera query. If the car matching this description drives past a Flock camera, it will capture the license plate, automatically enter data into Perkins' law enforcement database and lead detectives to additional information. They can also tip off cops to those with warrants so long as a person in a car drives past these cameras. "The other huge advantage is that we are a huge tourist destination: the islands, Cedar Point, Sports Force, downtown. You have to drive through Perkins Township to get there, and a lot of the crime that is being committed is from people that aren't from here," Musser said. "So when we get a description of a vehicle and can put in the system, we can start to track where those people and groups are coming from." Perkins Township also expects and welcomes requests from neighboring agencies, such as Sandusky and Huron police along with the Erie County Sheriff's Office, for help in apprehending suspects there passing by Flock cameras. "This is a significant tool to help reduce and solve crimes," Rotuno said. "Everyone in Erie County will."