Lakeland Police Department has spent more than a month gradually rolling out upgraded equipment to its officers, including body-worn cameras.
Including new tag scanners.
“The license plate reader technology is working very well on those in-car systems,” Assistant Chief Hans Lehman told commissioners on Friday during an agenda-study session ahead of Monday’s meeting. “In the two weeks we’ve had it, we’ve read almost 250,000 plates already.”
Lehman said the cameras work while an officer is driving. The cruiser’s camera picks up plate numbers on parked cars or vehicles traveling in front of the cruiser. The system checks a database to determine whether the registered owner of the vehicle has an arrest warrant, suspended license or other red flags.
“The camera is working constantly behind the scenes scanning constantly,” Police Chief Sam Taylor said.
The in-car camera systems are part of a $9.3 million equipment package the city purchased from Axon Enterprises Inc. of Scottsdale, Arizona, in December 2021. The contract included 250 body-worn cameras and new tazers for the department’s roughly 254 full-time officers, including detectives and administrative staff.
Taylor said the department’s crime scene units, media relations and public safety aides need to have access to the system to be able to upload photos and videos.
“Those three units submit a lot of stuff but do not have body cameras,” the chief said.
Lehman said it’s become clear the police department will need additional cloud storage to keep all the videos and digital evidence it is collecting. He’s proposed changing to a third-party unlimited cloud storage data. The cost will be offset by a financial credit from Axon, costing the city only about $1,025.