In the hours following Monday night’s high-speed chase and crash that later claimed the life of Grand Prairie Police Officer Brandon Tsai, and with only a photograph of a Chevy Malibu with a fake paper tag to go on, Police Chief Daniel Scesney knew finding their suspect would be difficult.
GPPD turned to the latest in surveillance technology.
“The Grand Prairie auto theft unit then began the arduous task of examining over 6,000 imagines including suspect vehicle scans and our Flock License Plate Recognition System,” said Scesney during a press conference Thursday afternoon.
The solar-powered Flock cameras are typically installed in high crime areas, scanning license plates as vehicles drive by.
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Cities across North Texas are using the technology to fight crime.
In February, the Dallas City Council approved spending $820,000 over five years for 80 new license plate-reading cameras.
Fort Worth Police have over 100 Flock cameras.
Last year, Sgt. Dalton Webb of the FWPD gave NBC 5 an inside look at how the system works.
“We had an individual who got carjacked at gunpoint and we put his license plate of his carjacked vehicle into Flock,” said Webb. “Within 28 minutes, we got a hit on the plate. We sent officers there and they got that person into custody and recovered the car.”
Following the tragedy in Grand Prairie, detectives scoured images of cars with similar descriptions.
Police revealed that more than 200 vehicles, including many Chevy Malibus, had the same fictitious tag as the suspect’s vehicle.
They soon discovered Flock cameras scanned the suspect’s paper plate several times near the intersection of Hensley Drive and Main Street, according to police.
Police then canvassed the neighborhood where they not only found the suspect’s car stripped of the plate, but also other vehicles with the same fake tags, said Scesney.
Police have made ‘a number of arrests’ during their ongoing investigation.
As police confirmed the car was the one police had been searching for in the neighborhood, someone reportedly informed Colbie Hoffman, 22, police were closing in on him.
Hoffman then called Dallas police to turn himself in.
He reportedly confessed to driving the car involved in the chase and was ‘very forthcoming’ with police about the fake tag on his car, according to Scesney.
