Brooklyn Park Police Requesting New Surveillance Equipment
The Brooklyn Park Police Department is looking to beef up its surveillance apparatus with new license plate reader cameras.
These new cameras would be installed in the city’s high crime areas. The department is looking to buy eight cameras — produced the company Flock Safety — at a cost of $28,000.
According to Brooklyn Park Police Inspector Elliot Faust, similar technology has already proved beneficial to the department.
“We’ve had several cases, one recently, where we located a missing person based on the technology,” Faust said.
The Brooklyn Park Police Department is looking to beef up its surveillance apparatus with new license plate reader cameras.
Several surrounding agencies already use the technology.
The cameras should help locate stolen vehicles, according to Faust.
“We have had an absolute epidemic in the city of Brooklyn Park — 400 stolen vehicles in the last year alone,” Faust said. “One of the highest rates just behind Minneapolis and St. Paul.”
License plate reader cameras have also helped the department locate a suspect in a recent shooting.
“It overcomes a lot of other concerns too, when it comes to biased-based policing and things like that,” Faust said. “It’s technology that is completely, 100 percent objective. So I think it is the way of the future and I think we’re just really starting to see this take off in our area.”
The police department is presenting the proposal to buy these cameras to the Brooklyn Park City Council on Monday, Sept. 9.
