A Flock camera system has been installed in Leitchfield.
The Flock system is a series of surveillance cameras installed at nine locations in the city of Leitchfield. The Leitchfield Flock cameras — the final camera was installed on February 17 — will be connected to thousands of other Flock camera systems installed around the U.S.
“It’s a safety thing for the community; it makes our community safer. And that’s what it’s all about for me,” Miller told K105. “It’s like adding two officers to the force. (The cameras) pick up details (e.g. bumper sticker, license plate number, minor damage on a vehicle, etc.) that other surveillance cameras don’t.”
The city of Elizabethtown had 20 Flock cameras installed in February 2023. Since that time, the surveillance system has aided in solving several crimes, including quickly capturing a shooting suspect and locating a stolen vehicle with a seven-month-old baby inside.
- In the shooting incident, Flock cameras enabled police to identify the suspect after he drove by a camera while leaving the shooting scene. He was caught 12 hours later.
- In September 2023, a baby was inside a vehicle that was stolen. Authorities found the vehicle with the baby inside within an hour of the crime courtesy of the city’s Flock system cameras.
The technology, according to Elizabethtown Police Chief Jeremy Thompson, a 26-year law enforcement veteran, is a key piece of his department’s investigative arsenal.
“Of all the years I’ve been doing this, I can’t think of a better piece of technology, a more game-changing piece of technology that what Flock has done for law enforcement,” Thompson told The News-Enterprise in a November 2023 interview, found here (paywall). “It gives us actionable intelligence in real time on what’s going on in our city when it comes to criminal behavior.”
The Leitchfield Police Department said it “would like to assure the public that this is not a live traffic surveillance system.”
“Officers will not be watching cameras and tracking random individuals throughout the city,” LPD said. “Our Flock system is governed by many limitations of the camera system, state law, and local police policies.
“For example, if we are involved in a criminal investigation, and we know the suspect or the vehicle description, we may be able to input a time frame of the area of the crime, vehicle description and produce a license plate number which will lead to the suspect.”
If police know the identity of a suspect and vehicle, Flock cameras can be used to locate a wanted person.
“Officers with a known suspect may input the license plate number of the suspect’s vehicle and Flock will send alerts to help us track down a wanted individual,” LPD said. “Policy and supervisor discretion will play the primary role in determining if that tag number may be input into any kind of ‘hot list’ (agency watch list).”
The system can also be used to supplement Amber and Golden Alerts.
According to the Flock website, the surveillance system has been installed in between 3,000 and 4,000 cities in the U.S. Flock cameras are connected, and once data related to a suspect or vehicle is entered into the system, one of the tens-of-thousands of Flock cameras will “hit on” the vehicle or person if they come into view of a camera anywhere in the country.
By Ken Howlett, News Director
Contact Ken at ken@k105.com
