ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Five new questions appeared Monday on the city's license plate reader page, and the Police Department has not answered any of them.
They sit under a heading, "Additional Questions," at the end of the department's written responses to City Council's Sept. 8 questions. Each is followed by two words: "Pending Response."
They go at the numbers the department has cited most often in defending the program.
One asks about the 266 arrests the department has attributed to license plate reader support: over what period, out of how many total searches, and what "directly attributed" means — who makes that determination, and by what method. The question cites a January memo listing 266 arrests, 134 stolen vehicles recovered, 14 firearms seized and 20 missing persons located.
A second asks how many of the 134 stolen vehicle recoveries since March 2023 began with a reader hit, rather than an owner's telematics alert or a citizen report.
The other three ask how camera placement relates to auto theft patterns across the city, what distinguishes the Flock cameras from the city's red-light cameras, and how red-light cameras collect and retain data.
The page was also retitled. It had been the Public Safety Dashboard; it now reads "License Plate Reader Dashboard and Response to City Council Questions on Flock Cameras."
Nothing else on the page changed. The offense breakdown still reports 1,348 searches and has not been updated since Sept. 8. The page says it refreshes roughly every 30 days.
The department's written answers to council, posted Thursday, disclosed that the city contracted for the cameras in 2023 through the reseller Insight Public Sector, that the term expires in April 2027, and that APD has restricted access for 12 Virginia agencies holding 287(g) agreements with federal immigration authorities.
Police Chief Tarrick McGuire told the Commission on Information Technology last week that he made that decision after consulting the city manager, and asked the commission to send him a list of safeguards it wants built into any replacement system.
Two community listening sessions are scheduled for Sept. 24 and Oct. 7.
Separately, DeFlock campaigns from Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax and George Mason University are holding a virtual presentation at 7 p.m. Tuesday featuring Steven Keener, director of the Center for Crime, Equity and Justice Research and Policy at Christopher Newport University and a board member of the Justice Forward Virginia Foundation. Keener has mapped license plate reader locations in Norfolk against income and demographic data. Registration is through Action Network.
