DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) – It’s been under one month since the Dayton Police Department began fully implementing the new license plate reader technology and now they’re beginning to see some of the benefits many police departments across the country have seen.
Flock Safety is the company responsible for thousands of license plate readers used by many law enforcement agencies across the U.S., which includes about 125 cameras in the state of Ohio.
Now Dayton Police have their hands on this technology, which can be helpful in many situations especially considering how often cars are used in crimes.
“Seven in ten crimes are committed with a vehicle. So these license plate readers can help in the cases of homicides of assaults, of car-jackings and hit and runs,” Holly Beilin, spokeswoman for Flock Safety said. “All kinds of crimes are actually able to be solved with flock safety license plate readers.”
Dayton Police began using the plate readers at the beginning of February and this week that technology was put to good use. DPD reportedly caught a man suspected of murder; the technology can be helpful for quickly finding missing people as well.
The cameras take still images of the backs of vehicles, and the technology then compares different databases with crimes in mind.
“Looking for stolen vehicles, vehicles associated with a known wanted offender or vehicles associated with a missing person. categories, local law enforcement in this case, of course, Dayton Police Department are notified that they need to know about that vehicle, hopefully apprehend it, go after that vehicle and apprehend it.” Beilin said.
We reached out to DPD to see how they’re feeling about the technology so far and they say it’s too early for them to track how effective the software will be in solving crimes.
A link to all the locations of license plate readers throughout Dayton can be found here.
