Months after approval, APD will begin reinstalling license plate readers across Austin soon

Austin police said the process has been long and that city rules prevented the cameras from going up in certain areas. But now, the Flock Safety automated license plate readers will start going up in early February. The big concern about bringing the cameras back is where they will be placed. "There's a lot of permitting and engineering that has to be involved," said APD Lt. Michael McCarter. "We do have them distributed equally throughout the city to ensure that the entire city is covered and the areas are not being disproportionately targeted as far as the LPR program," McCarter and Sgt. Christian Maynes run APD's Auto Theft Unit, which manages the license plate reader pilot program. They said the 40 cameras will be mounted on existing fixtures, but that they can't disclose exactly where they will be located.

The cameras will take a picture of the license plate of every vehicle passing by, along with a time stamp. It then pings police when it detects a vehicle involved in certain investigations like a stolen car, missing person, or a crime that's at least a class A misdemeanor. "It definitely will assist in our investigations and help the community recover their vehicles a lot quicker," Maynes said. Auto thefts increased by 30% last year, mainly due to the viral trend of stealing Hyundai and Kia vehicles. Mainly, the cameras focus on helping APD solve crimes during ongoing staffing shortages. According to Maynes, the department is still understaffed and must work patrol shifts, which takes them away from working cases. KVUE's Daranesha Herron also asked APD if these license plate readers would help with bigger crimes like the December shooting spree that left four people dead and saw multiple vehicles stolen.