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Sheriff’s Office pitches countywide license-plate reader network; finance staff to explore funding path
Summary
Bedford County Sheriff’s Office and vendor Flock Safety presented a plan to install license-plate–reading cameras at county entry points to aid investigations, amber/silver alerts and burglary response. Staff will examine budget and capital options; no procurement vote was taken.
The Bedford County Sheriff’s Office on Monday presented a proposal to install a countywide network of license-plate–reading cameras from vendor Flock Safety, saying the system would help locate stolen vehicles, speed amber- and silver-alert responses and improve burglary investigations.
Chief Deputy Elliott, who led the department’s review of the technology, said the cameras would give investigators immediate leads in vehicle-based cases and link Bedford County to a regional network of cameras already used by nearby agencies. “When you start thinking about the call and the reporting and trying to get all the information so that you can get it, and then getting it pushed out to everybody, that’s extremely fast,” Elliott said.
Flock Safety territory manager Will Pepper described the vendor’s Falcon license-plate reader and a vehicle “fingerprint” search that can query partial or missing tags and vehicle characteristics. Pepper said the company stores data in an AWS government cloud, enforces a 30‑day retention period for noncase data, requires a documented search reason and does not use facial recognition or traffic enforcement.
Pepper presented a recommended camera map for the county and a phased purchase option. He said a minimum purchase of eight cameras would give Bedford County access to Flock’s national network; 14 cameras would “lock down” the county’s main entry routes. He gave a per-camera price of $3,000 per year, and estimated a minimum annual cost of $24,000 for the eight-camera option.
Chief Deputy Elliott and Pepper told commissioners the system has helped neighboring agencies recover stolen property and solve violent and missing-person cases. Elliott described a recent Bedford County investigation in which outside agencies’ Flock cameras assisted in locating a missing person and said having local cameras would close investigatory “blind spots.”
County staff described next steps but did not bring a procurement request to the commission. Nakia, a county official working with the sheriff’s office, said finance staff and the sheriff’s office would examine whether the initial cost could be funded from capital projects and whether ongoing costs should be incorporated into the operating budget. “Nakia has been working with my office. We’re trying to figure out a path that would potentially allow us to at least get the first year in place for this,” a county official said.
Commissioners asked about privacy and civil‑liberties safeguards; Pepper said agencies control footage, searches require a documented reason and an audit trail is available. Pepper said Flock offers an optional public “transparency portal” agencies can use to publish policies and search audits.
No formal procurement motion or vote occurred. The finance committee and county staff will return with budget options for commission consideration at a later meeting.
The presentation included questions about maintenance, turnaround for repairs and whether the cameras would be used for traffic enforcement; Pepper and Elliott said the product is not intended for speed enforcement and Flock’s policy prohibits that use.
The county will consider budget paths before any purchase decision. If the commission later requests installation, the vendor and sheriff’s office said the cameras are typically leased and can be contracted year to year.
