Big brother is watching — that’s one of the reactions to cameras that are the product of a company known as Flock. A recent caller to The Ulysses News voiced concerns over the cameras, so we talked with local law enforcement officials about what they are for.
“They have been up since 2021,” said Ulysses Chief of Police Ron Vagher. “We had a meeting with Ulysses City Council about it where they authorized it. It was one of the first three things that happened under my watch as chief.”
Vagher said he, along with then City Administrator Alan Olsen, worked on the project together.
“We took it in front of the council and when we presented it to them, they voted on it and approved it,” he said. “There is a lot of misinformation about what these cameras do. Many believe ‘big brother is watching us’ and that we’re tracking everyone’s movement — things of that nature. Do they take a picture of a vehicle and its license plate as it goes through an intersection? Yes they do. When it takes a picture of a license plate it cross references those license plates numbers through the NCIC (National Crime Information Center) data base to see if it is a stolen vehicle, part of an amber or a silver alert, if it is connected to a missing person, a BOLO (be on the lookout) — things of that nature. They don’t check for anything outside of what I already check for when I run a tag.”
Vagher compared the cameras to what happens when officers are on patrol.
“It’s like putting four police officers at that intersection just running tags — we can do that,” he said. “We don’t have to have a specific reason to run a tag. You’re in public, so it’s not protected. The tag on your vehicle does not belong to you, it belongs to the state that issues it. Does the data base store information? Yes, it does. It’s temporary. I can only go back maybe 30 to 60 days.”
When officers search for vehicles through the Flock system, they have to have a reason.
“When I do a search on a tag, I have to give a specific reason,” Vagher said. “I have to have an investigation ongoing — some kind of criminal allegation or someone reports you missing. Those who have an agreement with Flock can have access to other Flock cameras. I can put an alert out with the Flock camera and put a notice out, then if you go through a Flock camera it will notify my agency. I can tell the agency where they are at to check on them for welfare check or if they were wanted for something. There was an amber alert recently in Wichita. Guess what took care of the amber alert? A Flock camera.”
So what do the cameras not do?
“We can’t see the occupant or what is inside the vehicle,” Vagher said. “It is a picture of the vehicle and the license plate. You can tell there is a human behind the wheel, but I can’t zoom in and get a close up of your face. It doesn’t check your speed, so you’re not getting citations off of this. It doesn’t check to see if you run red lights. If you look at the cameras, they point away from the red lights. They are not even pointed toward the lights. There has not been one single citation for a traffic violation that has been issued off of these cameras here.”
The cameras have helped solve some cases.
“We have recovered a runaway from Texas, recovered more than one stolen vehicle and solved multiple theft cases,” Vagher said. “This is just a tool that assists us in stopping criminal activity, and in locating endangered individuals such as from Amber and Silver alerts. I can’t afford to pay an officer to sit at those intersections and watch every car in four directions. The cost to the taxpayer if we did something like that would completely eclipse the cost of the cameras.”
Vagher said there are four cameras locally.
“We pay for two of the cameras and the sheriff’s department pays for two,” he said. “Those cameras cost our department $5,000 per year and we have already solved in the neighbor hood of a dozen shoplifting cases from one store.”
Cost for the cameras is $10,000 per year, with half being paid by the police department and half by the sheriff’s department. Both agencies have equal access to all four of the cameras.
“I wanted these cameras and the sheriff wanted them,” Vagher said. “Instead of one entity paying $10,000 on their own, we worked together on it.”
Enforcement resulting from what the cameras capture comes when a crime has already occurred.
“The enforcement part comes through an investigation that has already been started, whether it be criminal or looking for a missing person,” Vagher said. “We don’t sit here and watch them. Let’s say there is an amber alert that goes through our Flock cameras. It pings and I can have a notification sent to me by email or my phone. It tells me, ‘hey, this vehicle just went this direction.’ Once the alert goes through, we know the vehicle in question went in a particular direction, so we start looking in that direction and start working with other agencies.”
There have been instances when the cameras were not used properly.
“It has been abused,” Vagher said. “One case I know of is that an officer in Wichita used it for his personal use. Every time officers run a search on a tag, it is logged. You can’t just go in and enter a tag number, without putting a reason why you are looking for it. You can, but when it coes out in the audit, you can lose your job if you don’t have a legitimate reason, just like the officer in Wichita did. If there is no reason entered in that box, you don’t get to do that search. There are checks and balances in how we access this information, and if found out you are doing it illegally - you’re done. These are just a tool to help us do our job and help us in an investigation. We don’t just go on there without a specific reason. There is an audit trail to using it. It does not record traffic violations. It does not tell me your speed or if you run the stop light. You know what I get? I get a picture of you entering the intersection, a picture of you leaving the intersection, but I don’t get a picture of the light with you going through. I can only search for vehicles, it doesn’t do facial recognition. I can’t put your picture in the system and search for you. The cameras here are license plate readers.”
The local cameras do not show video, only still shots of vehicles.
“It tells us how many cars go through an intersection in a month,” Vagher said. “The first full month we had them up, 250,000 vehicles went through. There were multiple cars, making multiple trips — that’s a lot of tires going through that intersection.”
There are times the cameras will get a shot of the front of a vehicle at intersections because of the number of cameras and direction they are pointing. Law enforcement are not the only ones who could have documentation of motorists.
“When you are on a public roadway, anyone could stand on the side of the road and video record you driving down that road,” Vagher said. “We aren’t doing anything someone else couldn’t do. The only difference is it cross references to see if there is an issue with a tag number that needs addressed by law enforcement. Those cameras are not there to catch speeders — that’s why we have radar in our cop cars. They’re not there for traffic violations. It is there for the major issues we need to focus on such as amber alerts, silver alerts, property crimes, and stolen vehicles that are occurring within our community — that’s what they’re for.”
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