Tulsa Police leaders offered a window into the department’s use of Flock Safety cameras during a Monday night forum at the Tulsa Tech Lemley Memorial Campus. Among their focus was the number of cameras TPD operates across town and law enforcement agencies nationally with access to that information.
Questions were submitted online by Tulsans prior to the town hall. TPD leaders did not accept live questions. Here’s what we learned about the department’s use of Flock Safety’s automatic license plate readers.
108 Flock cameras, with access to 160 more
Maj. Mark Ohnesorge, TPD chief of staff, said the department owns 108 Flock Safety cameras and has access to 160 privately-owned cameras across Tulsa. TPD pays about $377,000 annually to use the Flock Safety system.
Ohnseorge said Flock Safety is just one brand of automatic license plate readers that TPD uses.
More than 300 agencies have access to TPD license plate reader data
Maj. Ryan Perkins said one of the first decisions made by new Chief Jonathan Brooks was to change the data-sharing radius on the Flock Safety camera system to 250 miles.
“In a 250-mile radius, there are 319 agencies that have the potential to have sharing — open sharing — meaning that we can run data against their systems, and they can run queries against our systems,” Perkins said.
Perkins said TPD decided on that radius after speaking with investigators about cases where suspects have traveled from or fled to Little Rock, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Kansas City and Joplin, Missouri.
Why does TPD keep data for 30 days?
In August, amid a flurry of media attention on incidents of police abuse and contract cancellations, Flock Safety announced it was decreasing its recommended data retention period from 30 days to seven days. This means data collected by Flock Safety cameras would be deleted seven days after its capture.
However, TPD has kept the 30-day data retention period against Flock Safety’s recommendation. Perkins said it can often take investigators longer than seven days after a crime to find a tag to run in the system.
“A policy of holding the data for only (seven) days basically puts you into a box that says … the police department is going to be able to do the entire investigation that would lead us to run a tag inside the system in a seven-day window,” Perkins said. “I’ll bet you that’s not the case in most of the instances.”
TPD says Flock Safety cameras are not used for ‘immigration purposes’
TPD is not using automatic license plate readers for immigration enforcement purposes, said Capt. Shane Tuell. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not have access to TPD’s automatic license plate reader system, TPD Deputy Chief of Operations Mark Wollmershauser Jr. added.
“Speaking with the real-time information center earlier today, they’re unaware of any time that ICE has even contacted us for a query,” Wollmershauser Jr. said.
While TPD does not use Flock Safety cameras for immigration purposes, law enforcement agencies within TPD’s 250-mile sharing radius could query Tulsa’s cameras for that reason.
Hundreds of law enforcement agencies in Oklahoma have signed 287(g) Task Force Model agreements with ICE, which gives law enforcement officers federal authority to make warrantless immigration arrests. While the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office and numerous suburban departments have signed onto the program, TPD has not. Those arrested by police are subject to immigration screenings once they are processed at the county’s David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center.
‘We are absolutely abiding by the constitution and state law’
Wollmershauser Jr. said all of the department’s policies are “couched within the constitution and the case law that supports that.” He referenced a recent ruling by U.S. District Judge Sara Hill that a Tulsa County Sheriff’s deputy’s search of two automatic license plate readers prior to initiating a traffic stop likely violated the Fourth Amendment.
“I am aware that there’s been some conflicting case law recently talking about that, and we will continue to monitor that and look forward to seeing what the appeal process looks like on that,” Wollmershauser Jr. said. “But we are very sure that the way we implemented this technology, the way we carry out our policies and best practices, that we are absolutely abiding by the constitution and state law.”
News on 6 reported Monday that Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado disagrees with Hill’s ruling, and that his office will continue to use the automatic license plate readers as they await an appeal of Hill’s ruling — which Regalado expects.
While Wollmershauser Jr. said TPD’s use of Flock Safety cameras abides by state law, state statute explicitly restricts agencies’ use of data collected by automatic license plate readers to enforcing Oklahoma’s Compulsory Insurance Law.
TPD’s next community conversations
The City of Tulsa is hosting four more community conversations with public safety leaders over the next three weeks. Representatives from police, fire, emergency management, the municipal court and animal services will be on hand.
Here is the schedule:
- Oct. 26: 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Tulsa Tech Lemley Memorial Campus, Client Service Center, 3638 S. Memorial Drive.
- Oct. 29: 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Herman & Kate Kaiser YMCA, 5400 S. Olympia Ave.
- Nov. 2: 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Hardesty Regional Library’s Frossard Auditorium, 8316 E. 93rd St.
- Nov. 5: 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Rudisill Regional Library’s BOK Harmony Hall, North Meeting Room, 1017 N. Greenwood Ave.
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