Enumclaw Council Weighs Benefits of Automatic License Plate Readers

It appears the Enumclaw City Council will be further exploring the use of automatic license plate reader cameras.

Enumclaw Police Department’s Chief Tim Floyd gave a presentation about the cameras with Flock Safety, the providers, on June 23.

After the presentation, a straw poll was taken to see if the council wanted to continue the conversation.

Council members Chance LaFleur, Tom Sauvageau, Anthony Wright, Jan Martinell and Corrie Koopman Frizier signaled they wanted move forward with the EPD’s proposal; Council members Chris Gruner and Bobby Martinez dissented.

For those who don’t aren’t familiar with automatic license plate readers (ALPRs), these cameras automatically take pictures of back license plates and collects information like the make, model, color, and any damage or alterations to a car, but does not collect any facial data or track traffic infractions like speeding.

This isn’t new technology, and it’s the same that’s been used on toll bridges, HOV lanes, and even police cars for decades.

What’s different about the Flock ALPRs is the database of photos and information that allows officers to respond more quickly to a crime.

For example, if a crime just occurred and involved a vehicle, officers can use the Flock database to search for that vehicle using information like make, model, and license plate number. The database would then provide “hits” if a vehicle matching that description passes an ALPR, and would continue to provide those hits as the car continues to travel.

But the cameras also provide law enforcement with the ability to find more leads in a case that is taking time to develop, as the pictures are stored in Flock’s database for 30 days unless a vehicle is tagged as possibly being involved in a crime.

Floyd gave the hypothetical of a family coming home from vacation and finding their house burglarized. If officers are able to uncover any information about a vehicle used in the crime, the Flock ALPRs may help them locate the car later because of the 30-day data retention range.

Any hits the Flock ALPRs sends to officers could only alert Enumclaw officers — Floyd said he would have minor crimes would only alert EPD officers — but the system can be set up to alert other departments if a vehicle involved in a serious crime passes through their area.

Floyd gave the council numerous examples of how Flock has benefited other departments when it comes to serious crimes, as well as ways not having Flock has hindered the EPD.

One such example was when an Auburn Haggen was robbed at gunpoint last May. According to Floyd, the Auburn Police Department only had a description of the vehicle, a blue Audi A4, to go off of for the start of their investigation. However, after putting that information into the Flock system, the Audi was quickly spotted nearby. Not only were officers able to arrest the suspects in short time, they also confiscated three handguns with extended magazines and devices to converted the firearms to be fully automatic.

Conversely, the victim of a stabbing was dropped of at Enumclaw’s St. Elizabeth Hospital last month. The victim did not cooperate with the EPD, which meant the only lead they had was the make, model, and damage to the car that dropped the man off, but not the license plate.

According to Floyd, it took the EPD ten days to discover the license plate number.

The case has been closed, pending further leads.

Floyd added that three outside agencies and the FBI have asked if the EPD uses ALPRs for their investigations.

According a Flock and Texas Christian University study, 10% of reported crimes are being solved with the use of these ALPRs.

THE PROPOSAL AND THE PUSHBACK

Floyd has proposed the city use eight Flock ALPRs, which he has described would be like having eight more officers on duty 24/7.

Four cameras would be positioned on SR 410 to take photos of cars going to and coming from Greenwater or Buckley; the other four would be placed on SR 165 and 169.

The total cost, he said, would be about $24,000 a year ($30,000 the first year, with installation costs), with the possibility of covering some of that cost with grant money or other non-general budget sources.

Floyd has argued that with Flock cameras being installed all across King and Pierce County, including Black Diamond and Bonney Lake, crime will move to areas that do not have the ALPRs.

“There’s a net of Flock all the way around Enumclaw. We’re a hole in that net,” Floyd said in a previous interview with The Courier-Herald; he noted that after Everett installed the cameras in 2024, there was a 76% decrease in car thefts. “If the criminals are leaving where the Flock cameras are, they’re going to go to where they aren’t.”

But Council members Gruner and Martinez have asserted that these cameras violate privacy and are tantamount to mass surveillance.

Gruner said that he’s not concerned with how the EPD would utilize this technology, but how the state and federal government could use it.

“It wasn’t that long ago that we had a governor who completely, in my opinion, abused his emergency powers,” he said. “… The civil liberties issue in the state is real… we start building a network like this, we don’t necessarily have control over it, no matter how much we think we do.”

Gruner also noted that the state of New Hampshire passed a law that required all ALPR data that is not on a “hot list” (vehicles that are already involved with criminal activity) be deleted after three minutes.

“Taking a cookie-cutter approach from a venture capital private company, as opposed to thinking carefully about the privacy aspects and concerns, I think [is] important,” he continued.

Martinez echoed Gruner’s concerns.

“I’m not worried about local abuse. I’m worried about building an infrastructure that larger entities can abuse and have shown throughout history they’ll abuse time and time and time again,” he said. “To think that that won’t happen with this because there’s city council oversight, when the federal government gets involved, I have zero doubt that they can’t care less what this local city has to say about it.”

Gruner and Martinez also said they’re concerned that the city will face pressure to use additional Flock products like video integration, drones, or an “all-in-one data intelligence platform” that allows police to search for data on people if other surrounding communities start utilizing these tools.

Floyd has said the term “mass surveillance” is being misused in this case.

“Surveillance would be putting a GPS tracker on a car and following that car around everywhere it goes,” he said. “This takes a picture, a snapshot, as a car goes through a camera, and that’s it. It doesn’t follow the car, there’s no video feed. We can’t log in and watch cars go by.”

The Chief added that there’s also no invasion of privacy, because case law says there’s no expectation of privacy on a public road, and that they can already access similar information via other databases, albeit slower.

“The information that our officers receive from the Flock cameras is not information we aren’t privy to now,” he said in a later interview. “We have access to databases in which we can get full names, date of birth, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, vehicle information, firearms information, etc.. Any search in these databases is trackable and auditable and there must be a justifiable law enforcement related reason, just like the Flock camera database.”

He pushed back at the idea that the department should reduce the data retention from 30 minutes to a smaller number.

“Law enforcement is not like on TV where we get a crime and we have a team of detectives there the next minute… sometimes we get things reported to us days or weeks later,” he said, calling this crime lag time. “Thirty days is the standard. Thirty days is exceptionally reasonable.”

OTHER QUESTIONS AND FACTS

After the June 23 presentation, elected officials had a lengthy Q&A session with Floyd, Flock Sales Executive Cody Bates, and Flock Public Affairs Manager Kristen MacLeod.

Council member Wright asked what the difference is between Flock cameras and red light/speeding cameras; MacLeod and Floyd said the biggest difference is that Flock’s ALPRs don’t use any technology that would recognize a traffic infraction like speeding or running a red light and automatically send the suspect a citation.

Wright also asked about how the Flock system can be audited.

According to McLeod, each officer that utilizes the Flock database receives a unique ID number that has to be used when officers search the system, meaning an audit would reveal what officers have been using the system for.

She added that different departments audit the Flock system in different ways, from being in-house to bringing in a third party. She added that searches cannot be deleted from the system.

Additionally, Wright asked how Flock would act if a third party, like the state or federal government, wanted access to the Flock database.

MacLeod said that Flock would comply with any subpoena, but would also notify the department affected by the search, as individual departments own the data they collect.

Finally, Wright asked about the current court case involving Flock cameras in Northfolk, Virginia, where the plaintiff argues these ALPRs violate the Fourth Amendment regarding unreasonable searches. The trial is set for October.

MacLeod said Flock’s position is that because these ALPRs only take “point-in-time” photos and don’t continuously track a vehicle, there is no constitutional violation. She added that other courts have upheld the use of ALPRs.

“We feel confident… that the outcome will be favorable and will not have an impact on [ALPR] use,” she said.

Gruner asked about additional Flock products, like the new Flock Nova, “an all-in-one data intelligence platform built to accelerate investigations,” Flock’s webpage reads. “…For the first time, investigators can link people and locations within a single intelligence platform, allowing them to extend the investigation lifecycle​.”

“It looks like it connects the police with… open-source data, including open-source intelligence related to the car’s owner when a search is initiated,” he said. “Do I have that correct?”

MacLeod said Gruner’s description of the database is correct, but added that this is a completely separate product from the Flock ALPRs that the EPD is requesting.

“It’s within your full control what you feel is most appropriate for Enumclaw and where the comfort level with your community is,” she said.

Bates also said that the EPD can choose what other departments it wants to share its data with, if any.

Chief Floyd, in a later email interview, said these sorts of tools are more appropriate for Seattle and Tacoma, and not Enumclaw.