Police in White Settlement say automatic license plate reading cameras from Flock Safety helped them arrest a shooting suspect.
Burgos Rodriguez, 32, is accused of opening fire toward six teenagers near 8100 Foxfire Lane on Nov. 9.
White Settlement set up 10 of the license plate readers in 2022. The city has now partnered with Fort Worth and Lockheed Martin to monitor a network of 65 Flock readers.
“It’s a force multiplier,” White Settlement Chief of Police Christopher Cook said. “It’s extra eyes and ears if you will, on the streets.”
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The cameras scan every plate that passes on the road, sending police an alert if they’re connected to any reported crimes.
One of White Settlement’s biggest successes from the technology came last week.
“Thursday evening we responded to multiple reports of shots being fired,” Cook told NBC 5.
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Investigators told NBC 5 they were called to Foxfire Lane after a man shot at a group of six teenagers. No one was shot in the incident.
Witnesses at the scene told police the shooter left in a blue Chevrolet truck.
The same day, Flock Safety cameras in other parts of White Settlement picked up multiple pictures of the truck from the scene.
Police arrested Rodriguez and charged him with six counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
“We’ve seen successes before, certainly from recovering stolen cars, fugitives, warrants,” Cook said. “But in reality, this is only about the third case to my knowledge over the last year and a half that’s helped us solve a gun crime.”
Since the cameras were installed, the police department told NBC 5 that some in the White Settlement community have shared concerns about potential invasions of privacy.
In response, the police chief said this technology wasn’t “Big Brother” at work.
“In reality, that’s not the case,” Cook said. “First of all, Flock has a great platform in the fact that after 30 days, that data is purged. That doesn’t stay on a server forever.”
Cook told NBC 5 the platform also doesn’t have facial recognition and only records in public intersections.
“Flock has been instrumental, and I think the way that you dispel some of those myths is you just have to talk about what the technology is and isn’t,” Cook said.
