Oklahoma's Own In Focus: How Flock Cameras Help Police Catch Criminals In Green Country

Sand Springs Police say their license-plate reading cameras have been a game-changer for the department, and have helped them recover hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen property as well as find and arrest criminals.

Sand Springs Police say the cameras read license plates and if any agency in the nation has entered a wanted person and their license plate, Sand Springs would get a hit if that vehicle is in their jurisdiction.

The cameras read every license plate that drives past them.

If your car isn’t listed in the database, the information is deleted after 24 hours, but if it is, it notifies officers right away.

"These officers have apps on their phones, apps on their computers in the car,” said Deputy Chief Todd Enzbrenner with Sand Springs Police. “We get alerts when Flock hits, it pulls up the tag number, and the vehicle description. They're looking at it in their car. They see it in their car, they look for it on the road."

Officers say it’s taken a lot of the guesswork out of policing- and helps them find suspects accused in a wide range of cases.

"We put it in there when crimes occur,” said Enzbrenner. “If we have auto burglaries in a neighborhood and we get a vehicle that matches, or a domestic violence suspect, or you name it, any major crime, property crime, anything like that, we can enter them in there and it will alert our guys.”

Officers say in cases like the chase on Friday, the cameras can help them know where a suspect will be and make it easier to catch them.

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"These things are a short delay, 15, 20, 30 seconds,” said Lieutenant Jerrod Raglin with Sand Springs Police. “This vehicle has hit the same camera over the past couple of days, so we were kind of in the area when it did hit. Officers were on the highway when he got on."

Sand Springs Police say the cameras have been a huge success so far and they hope to add more in the future.

"We got six right now, we're working on a grant for more,” said Raglin. “It's helped us recover several hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of vehicles and property, and track people down for committing crimes such as larceny and other things in our city."

Because the database is national, people wanted in other parts of the country who end up in Green Country could be spotted and arrested.