Bowling Green police have added license plate readers that have helped recover stolen vehicles and locate two missing Michigan juveniles.
Had the city had them in 2021, the police would have had the vehicle involved in a downtown shooting in 30 seconds, said Bowling Green Police Division Lt. Adam Skaff.
They had a description of the vehicle, but no license plate, he said.
Skaff told the BG Kiwanis Club at its meeting Thursday that he started last year searching for options for innovative ways to help officers serve the city and found the license plate readers.
The readers are cameras that take photos of vehicles as they go by and contain software that will search by vehicle make, model, color, time, location and direction of travel, Skaff said.
They even note hood racks and bumper stickers, he said.
“In the past, I had to look for hours and hours at video tape trying to determine when a vehicle went by and then guess the license plate,” he said.
Skaff provided a demonstration for a silver Chevy SUV with Michigan plates and found images of several that had been in the city. He showed the image of one caught by the reader at College Drive and East Wooster Street.
There are 23 readers at the main entrances and exits in the city. Alerts can be received via text or email.
“Crime in the United States is increasing in all areas, but what stays the same is 70% of crimes involves a vehicle,” he said. “Most of our crime doesn’t originate in Bowling Green. The vast majority of our serious crime comes from outside our community, and they’re not walking here.”
The most important aspect of those vehicles is the license plate, Skaff said.
The readers supplement the 65 cameras that are in the downtown area, he said.
“We’re not hiding them, they’re designed for your safety,” Skaff said. “We’re not tracking you.”
There is a database for stolen vehicles, missing juveniles and warrants, and the readers are used to search for those plates.
The state every day updates the database of stolen vehicles and warrants, and that list is automatically updated to the server. If the wanted license plate passes a camera, an alert is issued.
The readers are motion activated, so even if there is no plate on the vehicle, it still will record.
The readers can be used for more than criminal enforcement, Skaff said.
They can calculate the flow of traffic to determine the best time to close roads for construction and can count how much traffic increases for tractor pull and student move in.
The cost to the city is $24,000 per year, he said.
Within days of their installation in March 2022, the city recovered a stolen vehicle.
“This technology has existed for over 10 years but it’s final gotten …affordable,” Skaff said.
