HARTSELLE, Ala. — On April 21st, Hartselle officers received an alert from their Flock Safety system that a stolen vehicle with Massachusetts license plates had been spotted in the area. Officers located the vehicle and initiated a traffic stop. " So, this particular day I got a notification of a stolen vehicle, and that's typically what, what the notifications are. I mean, 99% of the notifications are stolen vehicles, "Lieutenant Alan McDearmond, Lieutenant of the Criminal Investigations and SRO Divisions with HPD shares. "So, when I walked up to the vehicle, I approached the driver, and I told him the reason that I pulled him over was the vehicle was reported stolen. At that point, the passenger spoke up and said, 'well, this is my vehicle'. She handed me a registration receipt, took the registration receipt back to my vehicle so I could communicate with dispatch. I noticed that her driver's license didn't match the registration but when the vehicle was entered into NCIC as a stolen vehicle, they had also put a little note that that the passenger was potentially a missing person."
The male driver and female passenger were separated, and the female informed officers that she had been abducted and brought to Alabama against her will. The driver, 37-year-old Antonio Concepcion, was arrested on charges of second-degree kidnapping.
Hartselle Police officers arrested the suspect accused of the kidnapping through use of Flock Safety's Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras that alerted officers to a stolen vehicle’s location. "So, Hartselle was using our automated license plate reader, ALPR camera, and this is a motion activated steel camera that sits on the side of the road, and it captures pictures of vehicles going by specifically focusing on the license plate," Holly Beilin, a spokesperson for Flock Safety shares. "Now, the reason we focus on the license plate is because we know that seven in ten crimes are committed with a vehicle. Now, these readers also send alerts to law enforcement proactively in the event that they detect a stolen vehicle, or a vehicle associated with a wanted offender or wanted person."
When the scanners were first introduced to the community there was big concern over privacy and Lt. McDearmond shares that as long as there is no crime committed, there is no reason to be concerned. "If it wasn't for a victim reporting their vehicle being stolen, then we wouldn't ever get an alert in the first place. A lot of law-abiding citizens are concerned that they're going to be followed but, you know, if you go into Wal-Mart or any other store where they got surveillance footage, it's the same difference. You're going to be there. You're going to be watched. We're not tracking people."
Hartselle PD has been proactive in looking for ways to incorporate more technology into their system, sighting that its use can give them an extra hand. "I mean, the more we have of technology, the safer our citizens are," McDearmond shares. "And that is us as law enforcement is to protect the citizens and so that that's what we try to do is search out all the technology that we can to help us. You know, the officers can't be anywhere 24 hours, seven days a week and essentially every camera that's in the city is essentially an officer sitting there calling dispatch to verify if a vehicle stolen every time it passes. So, we have that technology sitting there working for us."
Flock Safety technology isn't only for law enforcement, they offer a variety of options for private citizens and more information can be found here.
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