MORGANTOWN – During a recent information session, representatives of the Monongalia County Sheriff’s Department said the county’s 20 Flock Safety license plate reader cameras captured some 572,370 unique license plate images over a 30-day period.
The department compared that number to the 101 user searches conducted during the same time frame.
“This ratio underscores the compliance that we do … two-hundredths of one percent – that’s it – compared to all the data. And these were all legitimate uses that this system is for, and we ensure it,” MCSD Law Enforcement Administrator Mark Ralston said, explaining the data is purged by Flock every 21 days per the county’s contract.
According to a department public search audit available for download on the MCSD website “Transparency Portal,” those searches included license plates tied to the following offenses: Stolen property offenses (24); drugs/narcotics (21); destruction/damage/vandalism of property (19); larceny/theft offenses (11); motor vehicles theft (9); homicide/death investigation (2); missing/endangered person/runaway (2); robbery (2); other (2) – and one search each listed under the following: wanted person, burglary, assault/battery, trespass, arson, road rage, and child abuse/neglect.
Beyond user searches, the system alerted to 602 “hits,” which are plates entered into the National Crime Information Center, connected to missing persons alerts, or entered on a “hot list” of cases being worked by the department.
The NCIC is a federal database of information on crimes and criminals managed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that can be shared among law enforcement agencies in real time.
“The hot list could be like the example that we gave on protective orders, domestic violence issues, or a wanted person that has a vehicle associated with them. We can put that plate on a hot list. It wouldn’t necessarily have to be in NCIC,” Ralston said. “That’s where the hot list comes from. If we’re looking for an individual based on a crime or an investigation we’re doing, it stays basically in the Flock network and nothing is entered into the NCIC system. It’d be more for localized stuff.”
Even so, the department gets a number of hits through the NCIC that it never investigates because the plates are tied to known sex offenders and not an active crime or investigation.
“If you’re a registered sex offender, you’re in NCIC. So every time a sex offender drives by these cameras, they go off,” Ralston said, explaining more hits are generated by sex offenders than anything else.
By way of example, he showed all the NCIC hits that officers were alerted to between July 1 and July 17.
During that time, 135 hits were sex offenders. Additionally, there were plates linked to 22 active warrants, six protection orders, six stolen plates, two stolen vehicles and one suspected gang/terrorist flagged by the system.
Ralston said that, by and large, hits from sex offenders don’t raise alarm bells unless there’s an active crime or warrant.
“But everything else, absolutely,” he said. “And we would not have known where they are without this system.”
