The Long Beach Police Department will purchase new automated license plate recognition equipment after the City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve the move despite opposition from the public, who said the technology could violate the civil rights of community members.
The LBPD has used license plate readers for nearly two decades, according to department officials, and will continue to do so with new equipment it will purchase from Mallory Safety and Supply, the Washington-based company the council approved a new $1.2 million contract with.
The technology has been condemned by civil rights groups and local organizers for its ability to capture law-abiding residents in its scans, but also for past instances in which it’s been used against people of color.
The issue has been a hot topic, particularly among immigrant-rights groups, after the Police Department was found in December 2020 to be sharing data collected through the readers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, despite a 2018 city resolution to ban its officers from coordinating with federal immigration officers. The department acknowledged it was sharing the data with ICE and said it was a mistake.
LBPD Chief Wally Hebeish said the scanners, which collect images of license plates and assign the date, time and geographic location of those vehicles, help the department find missing people, follow up on Amber Alerts and solve crimes.
It would also help the department protect against potential terrorist threats from the upcoming 2028 Olympics, according to the department. The contract would be funded through a federal grant from the Department of Homeland Security.
Hebeish pointed to the arrest of suspects connected to a deadly 2019 Halloween shooting and the 2015 abduction and murder of a 3-month-old as examples of when technology has helped the department make arrests.
“There are many other examples, but these are two of the most tragic,” he told the council Tuesday night.
Hebeish said the department is in the process of updating its protocols and that it only shares data it collects with other agencies for legitimate investigations.
The department has a policy that it will openly share data with other agencies if they agree to uphold the city’s pledge not to cooperate with immigration enforcement agencies, however, no agency has agreed to those restrictions, a department official said.
Despite Hebeish’s reassurances that the department had learned from its mistake, community groups called on the council to block the contract.
“Trust is earned, and LBPD has not and will not be able to earn the trust of immigrant communities,” said Danny Padilla, referencing the 2020 revelation.
Others members of the public said that the technology would be used to target minority groups like Latino, Black and LGBTQ communities and would give the department real-time data of where people work, who their friends are and invade their privacy.
“The LBPD does not need more tech. They need to put their detectives into the field and solve crimes. They don’t need more gadgets,” said Christopher Covington, who also serves on the city’s Equity and Human Relations Commission.
That commission, along with the city’s Technology and Innovation Commission, have called on the city to ban or pause the use of things like license plate readers, facial recognition technology and other surveillance tools used by the department.
While both commissions have made formal recommendations to the City Council, any vote on a potential ban would require council members to add the issue to their agenda, something none have made an effort to do since the first recommendation was made nearly a year ago.
A December 2022 memo from city management recommending the council not pause or ban the practices led to one commissioner alleging that city staff was undermining the commission’s work to pause the department’s use of surveillance technology.
Councilmember Al Austin said things weren’t perfect, but he believed the council had put the department on the right path in regard to the number of reforms the department has implemented in recent years. But, he added, “we’re always getting tracked.”
“You can’t commit a crime and get away with it without some form of technology catching up with you,” he said.
The council voted unanimously to allow the department to accept the grant and purchase new equipment. The contract is expected to end in September, but the council would have the option to renew it at that point.
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