LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Councilmembers in Lexington are gearing up for a potential final vote next week on a new contract for the 100 license plate reader cameras used by police in the city.
The contract with Flock would extend the current lease for five years at a total of $1.6 million. It comes as Mayor Gorton unveiled her budget plan to add 25 additional cameras around town.
It's been about two years since the first camera was installed through a one-year pilot program with the billion-dollar company.
At the time, groups like the ACLU of Kentucky, NAACP of Kentucky, LPD Accountability, and Central Kentucky Chapter of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth expressed concerns about data privacy, surveillance, and over-policing of people of color.
April Taylor, a leader with LPD Accountability and Hood to the Holler, says those concerns about transparency and accountability are still there.
"When we see organizations who historically for decades have fought for the protection of our basic freedoms when you see organizations like the ACLU and the NAACP say 'Hey, this is the thing you would actually do if you were trying to be transparent and accountable' and then we see it not happen. I think it speaks for itself. Actions speak louder than words," said Taylor.
Commander Matthew Greathouse in the Special Investigations Unit has conducted at least one of the internal audits and oversees the program. He feels transparency and accountability are there and have improved since the partnership with Flock began.
They organized a meeting with stakeholders to create an official policy and transparency page.
"We have their concerns in mind. That's why we brought in the ACLU, NAACP, and Human Rights Commission to look at our policy," said Greathouse. "We knew we weren't going to change their minds; they had their stances and that's fine, but what we did is we asked for their feedback, and they brought several points, and we adopted every single one but one into our policy, and the only reason we couldn't do the one is because that was a state statute."
Greathouse says the department is not interested in having an external or independent audit at this time. He says LPD is the "gold standard" when it comes to transparency in this area.
"We put all of our information on our website for everybody to look at, so everybody in the public, not only in our community but anyone else in the U.S., can look at that information and go through that audit, so that is the independent review that we think is appropriate," said Greathouse.
Most of the cameras are in the first district. Officers told councilmembers that the cameras are placed in areas based on reports of crime, not bias.
Still, Taylor says she's among a group of people not convinced.
"It very closely aligns with areas that have been redlining in this city. It very much aligns with where you see areas of BIPOC, Black and brown folks," said Taylor.
Redlining is a discriminatory housing practice in which some government maps outlined areas where Black and marginalized people lived. Advocates say the legacy of harm remains.
"It highlights the segregation not just with race and ethnicity in our city but also the ways that people of different socioeconomic statuses separate themselves in this city in terms of where they live and where policing is focused," said Taylor.
Despite the controversy, police say the cameras have yielded results for safety that can't be ignored.
"It's very clear that we've seen an impact on our crime stats not only from our violent crime, which was our original target. We've seen it impact every single area of every investigation we do within our agency," said Greathouse.
Here are the latest stats from 4/16/24:
Stolen License Plates Recovered: 27
Stolen Vehicles Recovered: 269
Warrants/Subpoenas Served: 295
Missing Persons Located: 22
Leads for Investigations: 84
Total Number of Firearms Seized: 68
Total Number of Individuals Charged: 451
Total Number of Charges Placed: 1,099
Total Value of Recovered Vehicles: $3,731,844
Public safety currently makes up the biggest chunk of Gorton's new budget proposal at 56%.
