Whitehall police tout license plate cameras after felony arrest

WHITEHALL, Ohio (WCMH) — Whitehall Police are crediting a new crime-fighting tool for helping them track down a suspected child molester.

Police are singing the praises of the city’s Flock cameras, which are license plate readers that alert police if a car is marked stolen or registered to a wanted person.

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Whitehall Deputy Chief Daniel Kelso said that this technology has been a game changer for the department.

Body camera and dash camera footage from Whitehall show officers arresting Tony Mckenzie, 47. Police said Mckenzie is wanted on four felony counts for allegedly molesting children in Putnam County, Florida.

Kelso said the Flock cameras first hit Mckenzie at East Broad Street and Maplewood Avenue as soon as he entered the city.

“It told us that he was here and told us what kind of car he was driving,” Kelso said.

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Kelso said the department utilizes the cameras daily, set up to alert the radio room if a wanted car or person is pinged.

“Every single day, multiple times, sometimes every hour, we’re getting a notification on something,” Kelso said. “Sometimes, it’s, maybe, a minor warrant, and we don’t have the manpower to just go saturate the area. Sometimes it’s a major ordeal, and we will not only saturate the area with patrol cars, but we’ll send detectives out. I’ll leave the office. We’ll start looking for the wanted person or the stolen car.”

He said Whitehall police have been using the Flock system for a little more than a year.

However, there are some people who have expressed concerns about privacy with the technology. Kelso said he personally has no privacy concerns with the technology.

“As far as storing records on citizens, we don’t and we can’t,” he said. “We don’t even have the ability to and Flock doesn’t even allow you to. It’s actually part of their protocol that when you sign on to them, they’re like, well, ‘We’re a 30-day storage firm, that’s all you get,’ because they have those concerns, too. Thereafter, catching bad guys and bad guys only — not spying on innocent people.”

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Kelso said the Flock cameras have changed how the department investigates cases.

“We have upwards of maybe 100,000 cars going through here and hand running those cars, maybe that comes with a few every hour, but Flock hits them all and that’s what makes it a game changer,” Kelso said.

He said Flock changes how the agency helps others in situations like Sunday in the arrest of Mckenzie.

“If it wasn’t for Flock cameras and this type of system, this guy’s maybe out there, you know, hurting more people, so that we’re able to stop that right away,” Kelso said.

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He said dozens of agencies in central Ohio are using the Flock cameras.

Mckenzie will be extradited back to Florida.

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