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Richmond police chief cites recent rise in shootings, says ALPR system was disabled after outside access found
Summary
Chief Tim Simmons told neighborhood presidents the department saw about 50 shooting incidents in the past 90 days and temporarily disabled the Flock automated license-plate reader (ALPR) when it became clear data had been accessible to outside agencies; he said Flock is working on remedies and he expects to bring the issue to council in early February.
Richmond Police Chief Tim Simmons told the Richmond Neighborhood Coordinating Council on Jan. 12 that the city has seen a recent uptick in violent crime and that the department temporarily disabled its Flock automated license-plate reader (ALPR) system after discovering that some data had been accessible to outside law-enforcement agencies.
"Over the last 90 days, our city has seen a troubling increase in violent crime," Simmons said, adding that "we've had approximately 50 separate shooting incidents" during that period and that about 16 violent-felony investigations could have benefited from ALPR leads. He said the decision to turn off the system was made to protect community trust and data privacy.
Simmons told…
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