This is a joint committee meeting of public safety and economic development.

We're here to discuss the uh terms of the new axon contract for license plate readers.

I am joined by Councillor Nave, Counselor Moore, Counselor Williams, President Paniagua, Joe Barry, Sue Katzov, and Chief Trudeau.

Um so who wants to start, Chief, you want to start?

Yeah.

Okay.

I'll start.

Oh, first of all, thanks for uh having us here.

Also want to thank the council for uh working with us on this so we don't have a gap in uh LPR service between our current existing LPRs and going to Axon.

It's very important to us, so thank you.

Um so I thought we'd kick it off by going over the uh the axon um terms.

Um I think I think what we want to do um because the terms until we actually sign a contract are not uh for public dissemination, it would be considered attorney client privilege.

Let's just talk about in general what the product provides for SPD.

Okay.

So uh what we what we'd like is uh you know, these 26 uh LPR readers um for public safety and for investigations.

Um basically what the product does um depending on the uh the install, it goes on a light pole or it goes on a fixed pole.

Um it uh has a camera that's uh reads multiple lanes of traffic, it reads um cars going at uh various speeds, highway speeds, traffic speeds, and then compiles that data into a system that allows the police department to go back and based on criminal investigations search that data to assist us in you know solving crime.

So that's the the basic uh premise behind the LPRs and and what SPD's looking for uh in their use.

And I would like to know because I think there are a few points that are um vitally important for this body and the public to understand.

Um the data that is collected as a result of the installation of LPRs is data that is solely owned and accessed by SPD in the city.

It is not owned or controlled by the vendor.

They provide a clo what's called a closed system, so that only the data is only being uh transmitted to SPD for their use.

So I think that that is an important feature um that may be of import.

So they can't share data because they don't have data to share.

The data only lives within SPD.

Thanks for sharing that.

So that that is a huge concern in our community.

So thank you.

Um one question I do have, Deputy Chief, is um with our crime rates.

Um how many crimes do you estimate that we're solving because of these cameras?

You took my question.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

I stole this question.

So percentage-wise, I can't, I don't have a number percentage-wise.

That'd be an anecdotal number.

But for our major crimes, there's almost any no homicides at all that don't happen to have a vehicle involved in them.

So I can tell you that for our major crimes, they're used frequently.

I think Axon put a number at 70% of crimes overall, their number is a vehicle is involved in the crime.

Um so you know, for our major crimes, the percentage is high, and I think overall that that number is is pretty accurate, you know, based on that.

And thinking about evidence and closing cases.

I imagine that in order to you know go to a prosecutor, you have to have a number of different points of evidence.

How critical would LPR data be compared to all of the other data that you would bring to a prosecutor?

And what does that look like?

Yeah, so I mean, I think I think you know, there's gonna be witness victim statements, all right.

And we all know how how those identifications are witness statements can go in terms of that.

I think this LPR data is fact-based, right?

It takes a review by an officer, right?

I mean, we're not just going by the read.

We have to go into the system, but we're actually looking at that plate, we're looking at that car, we know that car was there.

And I think what it does is it opens us up to additional leads.

That's what the LPR system does, right?

I think once we know that car, now we have an avenue to get into potential other people.

Now we can track that car to other locations where there may they go into a store or there may be other evidence, or they say they purchase something.

We're we're looking at you know those financial records.

So I think that's very important in establishing that first lead that allows detectives and officers to build from there.

But it's not just the lead, right?

There's a review process that takes place based on that um that hit.

Another question I have, and again, this is probably just to quell the public's concerns.

Sure.

Um, you're not staring at these cameras looking for crime, right?