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Wyoming police say license-plate readers flagged thousands of alerts in first quarter after installation
Summary
Public safety director Neil Bauer told the City Council the department's automated license plate reader (ALPR) system has run primarily as a learning tool and flagged more than 1,100 revoked-driver alerts and about 440 suspended-driver alerts this quarter; the department publishes data on a transparency portal and plans data-sharing agreements with neighboring agencies.
Neil Bauer, Wyoming's public safety director, told the City Council on Oct. 7 that the police department's automated license plate reader system has been installed at four locations and largely used as a training and investigative tool since deployment.
"FLOCK did install all four cameras at this point," Bauer said, and "all of our officers have gone through the online training." He described the system's current role as identifying revoked or suspended drivers, locating stolen vehicles and flagging protective-order violations.
Bauer provided quarterly usage figures, saying the system alerted the department to "over 1,100 revoked drivers, over 440 suspended drivers [and] notified us of a 116 protection orders." He described a same-day incident in which a reader produced an alert for someone wanted on a no-contact order, allowing officers to locate the vehicle and turn the suspect over to Isanti County for arrest.
Bauer said officers have mostly used the system to look up vehicle information and that the department will move to broader investigative searches; he said staff are "working on getting data sharing agreements with our surrounding agencies to share that data and have an understanding of what it can be used for." He also noted a public "Wyoming Police Department Transparency Portal" on the city website where residents can download some of the system's search and usage information.
Council members asked whether the city planned any further expansion of the system beyond the planned "hot list" feature, which allows individual vehicles to be flagged for immediate sharing with neighboring agencies. Bauer said there were "no other expansions" planned at the moment and that the department is fine-tuning settings to get the right information from reports.
The council did not take formal action on the update. Bauer invited additional questions and said he would continue to provide quarterly updates as the department refines operations.
