Long Beach City Council’s unanimous decision to allow the police department to purchase over $1.2 million worth of automatic license plate reading technology was met with a round of booing from community members during the Tuesday night meeting.
City manager Tom Modia will now be responsible for crafting a contract with Mallory Safety and Supply, LLC to purchase up to $1,208,372 worth of Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) system equipment for the Long Beach Police Department.
The funding for the additional ALPR technology will come from an Urban Area Security Initiative grant given to LBPD by the Department of Homeland Security.
In the days leading up to the council meeting, local community organizations called on residents to attend and voice their opinions on the police surveillance technology. Dozens of residents and activists took turns addressing the council during public comment, urging them not to approve the purchase.
“LBPD cannot be trusted with surveillance technology,” said Caitlin Bellis, a member of The Anti-Surveillance Coalition.
Long Beach Police Chief Wally Hebeish said LBPD has been using ALPR technology for nearly 20 years. Councilmembers defended the need for the surveillance technology by citing high crime rates and public safety.
“Technology is where it is, you know, we’re always being tracked,” Councilmember Al Austin said. “I mean, you can’t commit a crime and get away with it without some form of technology catching up with you.”
Greg Buhl, Beachcomber reporter and founder of police watchdog site CheckLBPD.org, found that in 2019 only 0.07% of license plate data collected was from cars suspected in criminal investigations.
“We know that surveillance does not and will not protect us, will not prevent crime in our community, nor does it keep us safe,” said Dani Ortiz Padilla, development specialist for the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition. “We know from the data of millions of scans conducted in Long Beach in 2019 that 99.93% of the license plate data collected that year was all on law abiding drivers. So please explain to me how that’s preventing crime.”
An ongoing concern repeatedly mentioned by members of the public was the potential impact this technology can have on marginalized communities, including immigrants and people of color.
In the summer of 2020, two women who peacefully protested in downtown Long Beach after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police had their vehicles impounded weeks later. Neither of the women were ever charged with a crime, and their vehicles were eventually released, as reported by Forward and the Beachcomber.
In Nov. 2020, Long Beach news outlet FORTHE revealed that the Long Beach Police Department has shared data gathered by ALPR devices with Immigration and Customs and Enforcement, among over 1,000 other agencies. After FORTHE’s coverage, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sent a letter to city officials decrying the sharing of license plate data with federal and out-of-state agencies as illegal, per California Senate Bill 34.
The LBPD now claims it only shares data with agencies that comply with the California Values Act, which aims to prevent state and local resources from being used to assist in deportations.
“LBPD has already shown it cannot be trusted with ALPR technology,” said Tanya Navarro with the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition. “Now it’s asking for a hardware upgrade that will expand its ALPR capabilities in the name of public safety. When in reality our communities have asked time and time again, that you remove funding away from policing and into community-centered resource solutions. We demand that the city council pass an ordinance prohibiting the purchase or use of surveillance technology now and in the future.”
The Long Beach Equity and Human Relations Commission previously voted to ban the use of ALPR technology and to delete all existing data gathered from them.
Christopher Covington, a member of the Equity and Human Relations Commission, asked the council during public comments not to approve the purchase of additional ALPR technology.
“The Long Beach Police department does not need more technology,” Covington said. “They need to actually put their detectives out in the field and go solve crimes. They don’t need more gadgets, especially since those gadgets falsely incriminate and harm communities, specifically communities of color.”
Police Chief Wally Hebeish claimed in his presentation to city council the ALPR information LBPD gathers “is not associated with an individual. It does not contain personal information. Information that is captured is placed in the Vigilant software system. If we needed that information because of a specific crime that happened in a geographic area at a certain time, we would be able to access that and then we would be able to further the investigation to try to find out anything we could, associated with that vehicle information.”
But public commenters pointed out that license plate numbers are personal information.
“Obviously your license plate is tied to your identity,” said Caitlin Bellis, a member of The Anti-Surveillance Coalition. “It’s registered with the DMV. If someone is tracking my car, they’re tracking me.”
Councilmembers thanked public commenters for voicing their concerns before unanimously approving LBPD’s purchase of additional ALPR technology.
Lots of quotes here from people/activists who are against this. Very little presented from the other side about how much this technology is a huge help in investigating and solving crime. The one person who stated that detectives should be out in the field solving crime. Detectives need information to follow up on and to investigate. Where do these people think this information comes from? Why is there very little discussion on how this technology can help? Seems more could be done to help further the discussion and provide balanced information on this.