State police use technology to fight crime
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – “All right, get in the car.”
Master Trooper Shana Kennedy identified an SUV that she believes has a stolen license plate.
And, suddenly, we’re off on a pursuit that reaches speeds around 100 miles an hour. As we weave through I-65 traffic headed to downtown Indy, she works the radio and the computer.
When we catch up to the SUV in question, she learns that it’s a wild goose chase.
“Out of Wisconsin it returns to a gray 2015 Jeep Renegade.” That’s the radio message from a dispatcher.
“A plate, that exact plate, has been entered as stolen in Colorado,” said Kennedy.
All that information was gathered with the help of a license plate reader. It’s technology that includes 3 cameras attached to the roof of Trooper Kennedy’s police cruiser.
“I mean, it makes my job easier,” she said. “I can focus more on a certain group of people instead of playing the hit and miss game.”
The license plate reader captures a photo of almost every passing car and a photo of its license plate. It reads up to 7,000 plates in a day.
The license plate reader also uses an infrared ray to read a bar code that appears on every license plate and that leads troopers to a database.
And when the database indicates that the owner of the plate is wanted, an alarm sounds.
During one six month period Kennedy arrested 275 criminals, and that was with older technology. She got an upgrade to new technology last month.
State police now have two license plate readers and two more on the way.
