City of Sonoma approves license plate reader for police

On Wednesday, the Sonoma City Council approved spending $57,000 for 16 FLOCK Safety automatic license plate readers requested by the Sonoma Police Department. The cameras will create a “fence” around the city, allowing police to monitor who comes in and out.

“Crime in Sonoma is a visitor. It doesn’t live here,” Cutting said, explaining the bulk of police incidents involve people who are not residents, but drive into city limits to commit crimes.

Cutting said the new technology will help deputies capture evasive criminals, deter crime and create better cooperation with other Sonoma County law enforcement agencies. He noted the bulk of Sonoma’s more significant crimes happen overnight.

“We would have now a database of people that came into and left the city during those late hours, giving us a pool of potential suspects,” Cutting said. “We can reduce that pool down... into a very limited pool of suspects.”

The purchase of the license plate readers and a two-year contract with FLOCK Safety was approved as part of the consent items on the Sonoma City Council’s agenda, which caused the decision to move forward without discussion from the public. The city council previously reviewed and discussed the purchase of automatic license plate readers in June.

FLOCK Safety, an automated license plate recognition technology company, works with law enforcement agencies and neighborhood associations. License plate readers are already used by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office and other police departments in the region, including Healdsburg and Napa.

The American Civil Liberty Union has noted numerous privacy concerns regarding license plate readers and the poential for “mass police surveillance.” Some companies sell the data they collect, but according to Cutting, the FLOCK system is different because the data stays on a server that is only accessible to the Sonoma Police Department.

Cutting said the license plate readers will be useful in criminal investigations like home invasions, property crimes and stolen vehicles and catalytic converters. Automated license plate readers will increase the chance for deputies to find criminals on the run.

“When a car is stolen, it's entered into what's called a hot sheet, so that all agencies within the county have immediate visible access to the list of cars that have been stolen within a period of time,” Cutting said. “Any of those stolen plates that strike a FLOCK camera will alert the closest law enforcement agency that a stolen car has passed that camera and give us a location.”

Without the use of license plate cameras, deputies would have to be in the perfect position and have reason to stop the vehicle in order to be effective. The chance of that happening for Sonoma deputies is extremely small.

“We have no way of solving those crimes aside from tools like this,” Cutting said.

Contact Chase Hunter at chase.hunter@sonomanews.com and follow @Chase_HunterB on Twitter.