ST. MARTIN PARISH — Flock cameras are located around Acadiana and used by many law enforcement agencies across the region to scan license plates when drivers pass them.
St. Martin Parish Sheriff Becket Breaux said his agency has about 15 Flock cameras, which they use to solve crimes.
"It's almost like NCIC, which is a database where we run criminal histories and find out if people's wanted. These cameras are able to look at that and help us solve crimes, and believe it or not, over the past few years we have been using it and it's solved numerous crimes," Breaux said.
He said agencies cannot search for just anybody. There has to be a case number and reason for searching a license plate.
"If it's mom and dad driving their kids to school and you're not committing a crime, you have no worries in the world. Our deputies surely don't just look at people driving to school and doing their normal day activities. If you're a criminal and you're committing a crime, yes, we're looking for you," Breaux said.
According to its website, Flock is changing the default data retention to seven days, saying most crimes are solved within a week using the cameras. The data is currently held for 30 days.
Breaux said he has concerns about that change.
"If you go on vacation or you have a camp in St. Martin Parish and something's missing and you just notice it — a burglary or even a homicide where the crime didn't come up until seven days after — then we have an issue of trying to get that data back, you know, especially if the threshold is only seven days," Breaux said.
According to The Advocate, state Representative Danny McCormick said he plans to introduce legislation next spring that will ban the usage of Flock cameras statewide.
