This story has been updated by WBOI News Director Rebecca Green.
While Fort Wayne’s City Council canceled the city’s contract with the license-plate reader camera company Flock earlier this week, the matter is far from over.
Thursday afternoon the Fort Wayne Police Department held a press conference declaring their commitment to continue to use the Flock license plate reader cameras.
The City Council voted unanimously to discontinue the contract at Tuesday night’s council meeting. This came months after the contract expired, and after city residents expressed concerns about the surveillance equipment.
About two hours after Sgt. Jonathan Cutler held his press conference, Mayor Sharon Tucker sent a brief release saying she had heard citizens’ concerns about the cameras and will be working to disable the technology.
During the press conference, Cutler said he wished the council had taken up a second ordinance that would have codified the department’s policies as guardrails for the cameras’ use.
Thirty-six Flock cameras are still operating. That’s in addition to Allen County’s cameras and LPRs operated by private companies
Fort Wayne police and Allen County prosecutors want to keep using them because they say they work.
Cameras are also owned by private companies which, while they don’t have access to law enforcement databases, still record a vehicle’s location.
FWPD spokesman Sgt. Jonathan Cutler says he regrets the council’s decision regarding the contract. The department supported an alternative ordinance which would have offered additional guardrails and protective measures to ensure the technology was being utilized correctly.
Cutler said they want the dialogue with the city council.
“We are more than willing to continue to work with city council, state legislatures, whoever it is,” he said. “Because we think all law enforcement agencies should be held to the same high standard we're holding ourselves.”
In spite of the statements Tuesday by Councilman Russ Jehl that the vote to not renew the contract was a ban on the technology, Cutler said that is not the way that works.
“The vote did not enact a ban on license plate reader technology, though. Okay, there was a separate bill that was supposed to be up that evening that would have put guardrails on, told us how council wanted us to use the system, what was acceptable and what wasn't,” Cutler said. “That bill was pulled; it was tabled or rescinded, however you want to say that.”
Cutler said FWPD Chief P.J. Smith will determine the department’s next steps within the next week. A possible avenue for the police department is a smaller contract, not subject to council approval, directly between the department and Flock.
This would ensure the continual use of the cameras, due to their original purchase through a federal grant.
Cutler said the department did not want to be in violation of the federal grant because that could make it harder to get such funding in the future.
However, in her statement later in the afternoon, Tucker said that she had spoken with Smith in recent days and was also weighing the concerns of the public. She acknowledged concerns about violating the terms of the federal grant which paid for the cameras. That would need to be addressed, she said.
In her statement, Tucker says that her administration will continue to work with FWPD, city council and legislators around the issue. But concerns about this technology still run rampant through the community, where license-plate reading cameras have drawn non-partisan opposition
