Chambers County adding more Flock cameras

Some communities are getting rid of flock cameras like the one you see here on your screen recently covered up in Manville. Others are adding more. The Chambers County Sheriff's Office says the cameras help law enforcement track down suspects and solve crimes on a daily basis. Jillian Hartman following this part of the story for us, joining us live tonight after speaking with the sheriff. Jillian, tell us more about this technology and the difference they say it's making. Yeah, so the sheriff says flock cameras have helped reduce crime in Chambers County. He says in the last two years automated license plate readers in Chambers County have given police evidence that has helped lead to hundreds of arrests. Now the sheriff tells me the benefits outweigh the concerns and believes there's a lot of misinformation out there about flock cameras. Sheriff, how are flock cameras helping your deputies? Well they identify vehicles and that's really that's the same reason a license plate is on a vehicle is so that we can identify whose vehicle that is, who it belongs to. So when a crime is committed, we can turn to that automatic license plate reader and we can identify vehicles that may have been involved in the commission of that crime. How often is your department using these cameras? Daily. So I would say it is one of the best crime fighting tools within the last 10 years. It's as effective as DNA and fingerprints. Do you think Chambers County is safer because of these flock cameras? I absolutely know Chambers County is safer because of automatic license plate readers. We have solved numerous crimes, everything from burglaries to homicides. Just yesterday we arrested a kidnapping suspect out of South Carolina and we recovered the 12-year-old child. For residents who may have privacy concerns, what exactly do these cameras capture? They capture an image of the vehicle and of the license plate. They don't capture who's in the car. Only thing they do is they tell us where you were at a very particular time when it reads your license plate. That's what it does. It doesn't track you. It doesn't follow you. The misinformation is crazy and it bothers me that city councils and commissioners courts are falling victims to what I think is misinformation being put out on social media. What would you say to people who think these cameras are invading their privacy? I would challenge them to tell me how they're invading their privacy because if that's the case, then that means everybody's home security camera, all of those cameras are invading their privacy. There is case law after case law after case law that says that automatic license plate readers put on the public highway, on the public space, in public places is not a Fourth Amendment violation. Do most agencies, including your department, have policies in place to prevent misuse of these cameras? Yes, absolutely. Any professional agency should have a very robust policy to avoid any misuse by their personnel, have very strict guidelines on when the automatic license plate reader camera data can be used. If there's one message you want someone at home to hear about these Flock cameras, what is that? Is to not fear them. The only thing that we'll ever use automatic license plate reader on the public highway or the public road, county road, city street, is for your public safety. It's to help recover your child, it's to help recover your goods and your belongings that get stolen from you. It's to help victims and catch criminals that create victims. All right, Jillian, so what did the sheriff say, or what do you have to say rather, about other communities who are shutting off their Flock cameras? Yeah, so I got his reaction and as other communities are questioning Flock cameras, he's defending the technology. He said that law enforcement are the only ones that have access to those cameras and it's a proven public safety tool.