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(FLOCK SAFETY | CONTRIBUTED PHOTO) A license plate reader camera from Flock Safety. The city of Graham is considering Flock Safety cameras for every entrance to the city of Graham. -
(CITY OF GRAHAM | CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS) At left, small camera symbol is placed at entrances across the city of Graham where Flock Safety cameras are proposed to be placed. At right, two cameras are placed at the corner of Second and Oak Street and Elm and Fourth Street which are proposed by the city of Graham for monitoring the downtown area.
As budget discussions are underway for the city of Graham, one item being added to the proposed budget is for cameras utilizing license plate readers at each entrance to the city.
The city was provided a quote from Flock Safety of $24,500 for six Falcon ALPR cameras and one Falcon LR camera using the FlockOS system along with installation. The $24,500 is the first year’s cost and would have a recurring cost of $24,500.
The cameras and license plate readers would be placed at the city’s entrances at Hwy. 380 North, Hwy. 380 West, Fourth Street, Hwy. 16 North, Fourth Street and Cliff Drive, Hwy. 16 South and Hwy. 67.
“No one’s license plate will ever be put into this system unless they’re a suspect of Graham, Texas,” Graham Police Chief Brent Bullock said. “It doesn’t go around just reading everybody and videoing everybody. I mean it is going to be there, but it’s not going to be used in that way.”
The LPR cameras from Flock utilize artificial intelligence and can identify vehicles by make, color and decals. Law enforcement can also search by the radius of a location with identifiers.
“Once that Flock camera hits it, you have the ability to go in there and look at the feed from when that camera activated to see if that is the vehicle, which way it turned, which way it went,” Bullock said.
According to Flock Safety, the cameras capture and organize vehicles into categories based on make, model, color, resident or non-resident vehicle, timestamp, type of plate and damage or alterations.
“It just reads the license plate and basically puts a fingerprint on the car. It doesn’t run the license plate and tell you who it belongs to. It will tell you that this vehicle suspect is so and so, last seen driving it was armed and dangerous or just has a warrant,” Bullock said. “It’s a standalone system outside of (Texas Crime Information Center) and (National Crime Information Center).”
Every GPD officer that has the software on their desktop and mobile will be alerted from the system.
Vehicles can be narrowed to body type such as cars, SUVs, trucks, buses, motorcycles, bicycles and more. Flock Safety cameras do not have speed detection capabilities.
City Manager Eric Garretty and Bullock said the proposed cameras are to catch those who may have active warrants or who the city is actively searching for, such as a missing person.
A missing persons case from Graham in April 2024 resulted in information provided by the same camera system for a 19-year-old individual who was later found to be safe in South Carolina.
“Wichita Falls had just got the Flock camera system and we had his last plate with his vehicle and we had everything else. …The investigators saw it on our Facebook post, and… put in the license plate to pick up description and all that. These license plate readers that come with Flock found him going into Gate D at DFW airport,” Bullock said.
Much like Wichita Falls, Jack County contracted with Flock Safety, Inc. in February 2024 and purchased nine Flock Safety Falcon cameras for combined use with the city of Jacksboro under a two-year contract totaling $54,495.
The GPD chief said these cameras serve almost as an officer sitting at every entry point to the city, but also follow rules.
“There’s rules and circumstances that come with this product, just like when we run a criminal history on somebody. We can’t just run a criminal history through Austin just because we want to know. There has to be a reason why and we have to give that reason,” Bullock said.
Garretty and Bullock said the cameras are not going to be utilized as an active surveillance system, but can help with things such as pinging certain vehicles.
“The program allows you to put what they call hot vehicles in it. If we had a stolen vehicle in town and the first thing they do is get out of town, we would be able to know where that vehicle left from and which direction they went, just by putting that information into Flock. And so would every other agency around us, because once we put it into Flock, it goes statewide (and) nationwide,” Bullock said.
Additionally, the city is considering installing two Condor PTZ live video cameras for the downtown square. The city was quoted two Condor PTZ cameras and an installation fee for a first year cost of $7,500 and a recurring cost of $6,000.
The downtown cameras can alert vehicles, individuals in an area and provide live view for incidents. The camera uses artificial intelligence to identify humane presence without recognizing personal characteristics.
The police chief said the downtown cameras would be utilized to monitor the Young County Courthouse, Graham City Hall and for review of wrecks downtown.
“There is a way to have a live view, but it’s not like we’re going to be sitting there watching that live view. It’s going to be for the graffiti, the vandalism, the criminal mischief, the burglaries, for that purpose,” Bullock said. “...This gives us cameras downtown to protect our downtown district and area.”
Flock Safety said the cameras have an installation and permitting queue of nine-to-ten months for the Texas Department of Public Safety and two-to-three months for the city.
According to Flock Safety, data from its devices is stored and then deleted after 30 days for privacy and security purposes.
“All images and metadata is encrypted throughout its entire lifecycle, from on-device to storage in the cloud. Flock uses Amazon Web Services cloud storage and KMS-based encryption, limiting access to the encryption keys,” the company states on its website. “All (Criminal Justice Information System) data is stored in the AWS GovCloud and is only available to law enforcement agencies. No CJIS data is shared with non-law enforcement Flock Safety customers.”
