Popular Categories

No categories found.

Broadview Police Acquire Automatic License Plate Readers 


Cars traveling on Roosevelt Road in Broadview. | File 

A Flock automatic license plate reader. | Courtesy Flock Safety

Saturday, April 23, 2022 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews 

The Broadview Police Department has joined an array of suburban law enforcement agencies in acquiring automatic license plate readers. 

The Broadview village board voted unanimously on March 21 in favor of a contract with the Flock Group, Inc., to provide the cameras. Broadview Police Chief Thomas Mills said at the meeting that he anticipates the cameras to be installed throughout the village by May 1. 

According to the company’s website, Flock’s “patented Vehicle Fingerprint technology lets you search by vehicle make, color, type, license plate, state of the license plate, missing place, covered plate, paper plate, and unique vehicle details like roof racks, bumper stickers, and more.” 

Broadview will purchase five stationary mounted cameras and one mobile camera from Flock, Mills said. The total cost for installing the cameras is $18,250 while the company charges an annual maintenance fee of $15,500. The latter fee will be paid out of the police department’s budget, Mills said. 

The chief said his department received a $6,000 grant from the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus to help pay for the installation costs. The remaining installation cost will be paid with American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds that Broadview received, said Mayor Katrina Thompson. 

Broadview’s acquisition of the cameras comes as crime increases across the Chicago metro area and the nation, particularly property crimes like carjacking. Mills said while Broadview has not experienced as many carjacking incidents as surrounding municipalities, the crimes that take place in those communities often affect Broadview nonetheless. 

“In surrounding municipalities and Chicago, carjackings have been spiking pretty heavily and we have seen a lot of traffic come through our village,” Mills said. 

Mill said the data obtained by Flock cameras, which are solar-powered, goes into the Illinois Law Enforcement Agencies Data System (LEADS), a national database used by all police departments in the state. 

The chief said the village chose Flock after speaking with “four to five different vendors.” He said the company’s solar technology and its maintenance plan were the biggest factors in their winning bid.

Mills, who was a deputy chief with the Chicago Police Department before he was hired to lead Broadview Police last year, said the camera data has been helpful in quickly locating stolen cars throughout the Chicago metro area. 

He said the cameras are helpful for law enforcement collaborations, such as the city of Chicago’s Office of Emergency and Communications. The chief added that residents may have noticed more Illinois State Police officers in Broadview. He said all of those state police squad cars are equipped with mounted automatic license plate readers. 

“Everybody who has these cameras gets notified right away,” Mills said, adding that the “real time data” enhances safety for residents, business owners and officers. 

“License plate readers have been big in policing for many years,” Mills said. “Most big cities have them. A lot of smaller municipalities did not, but now with the increasing crime in and around the United States, these are big-ticket items.” 

In January, the Maywood village board approved a purchase of automatic license plate readers from another company. More recently, earlier this month, the village of Oak Park approved the purchase of eight license plate readers from Flock.

The cameras have also proliferated on the state’s highways. Illinois State Police started installing them on roadways last year. 

Although many people laud the technology for its potential to fight crime, license plate readers are not without their critics. 

When Oak Park’s village board was considering whether or not to purchase the cameras, some trustees expressed concerns that the technology’s surveillance might be abused. 

“Data in the hands of biased people will always be biased data,” said Oak Park Trustee Arti Walker-Peddakotla, according to Wednesday Journal reporting. 

Oak Park Police Chief LaDon Reynolds said in a presentation in March that Flock “takes human bias out of crime-solving by detecting objective data and detecting events that are objectively illegal,” such as stolen or carjacked vehicles. 

Reynolds said the camera technology does not “identify individuals; it does not identify sex or race.” 

During the Broadview board’s March 21 meeting, Mayor Thompson said she’s been asking for the cameras in the village “for years” and lauded Mills for securing them. 

“Public safety has always been part of our initiative to make sure stakeholders and residents are always safe and this is a step in the right direction to solidify what public safety means to the village of Broadview,” Thompson said. 

Leave a Reply