Can cutting-edge technology be a solution to more complex crimes and increasingly savvy criminals?
A number of police departments across the state seem to think so, with the advent of technologies like license plate cameras and other technologies that streamline and automate the business of police work.
“That has helped us dramatically reduce auto theft,” Martinsville Police Chief R.B. Fincher said, not just for Martinsville but surrounding areas. “We’re routinely recovering cars for different jurisdictions, all around, for Virginia and North Carolina.”
Martinsville last year bought a Flock ALPR Camera System, which allows officers to scan license plates of cars entering and exiting the city.
“As a car goes past the camera, it’s doing an automatic license plate check,” Fincher said. “It’s checking to see if a particular tag is entered as a stolen vehicle or if the car is entered as wanted, Amber Alerts … that sort of thing.”
With a $371,850 price tag, the license plate scanner accounted for the largest percentage of the more than $700,000 in grant funding spent last year to equip the department with new technology.
The grant funds came from Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Bold Blue Line Grant Initiative, which provided equipment funding for police departments across the state.
Martinsville’s police department spent much of 2023 future-proofing its arsenal with new technologies, several of which didn’t exist a handful of years ago.
“You have to stay abreast with technology,” Fincher said. “You’ve seen it yourself, you used to be able to keep a cellphone for years and years but now within a year or two you have to change it out. We have to be ahead of that technology at all times to make sure … we are doing proper investigations.”
Fincher says most of the technologies purchased last year would not have been available without state funding assistance.
“The grant helps departments get some equipment and services that departments like mine wouldn’t be able to afford,” Fincher said.
Operation Bold Blue Line is intended to help police departments and sheriff’s offices by not only paying for expensive technologies but connecting them to state resources and manpower. In Martinsville, this took the form of a collaboration between city and state police.
“Some funding went to the state police, to send some of their agents to us to assist us in helping to fight crime,” Fincher said. “It’s kind of equipment and resources that the whole operation helped provide…to attack crime in a big way.”
Fincher described the aid received by state troopers as invaluable.
“They were a huge help, not only in having uniformed troopers come in they also provided us with intelligence,” Fincher said, adding that the additional manpower helped in several ways. “It was readily apparent … with these additional investigative tools we were able to go through a lot of our outstanding warrants. It set the tone that we would be out here taking action and fighting crime.”
The program’s equipment funding aspect left a significant mark, according to Fincher, by modernizing the department with current tech.
If a car triggers the new Flock camera system, for instance, an alert is sent to all officers on their cellphones and in their patrol vehicles. Images are stored for 30 days.
He mentioned the impact the system had on a human trafficking case.
“A young juvenile was kidnapped by a subject that was out of state,” Fincher said. “The Flock Camera System, by being able to put in an alert for that car, was able to direct where they were at and the marshals were able to rescue her in Charlotte, North Carolina, before they got too far away.”
Fincher said that places like Richmond make use of a similar system, but the technology isn’t typically found in departments the size of Martinsville, with its 44 officers. The FLOCK system is leased to Martinsville annually.
“Without Bold Blue Line, we were only going to be able to afford a couple of the cameras,” Fincher said. “With Bold Blue Line we were able to get a whole network of 43 cameras. Instead of just one spot that we are getting checks, it’s pretty much throughout the whole city.”
The city also purchased covert pole cameras, which provide a livestream to officers, helping them to assess situations before arriving. Officers can erect them and take them down, relocating them to places that are designated spots of interest.
The cameras do not work in tandem with the Flock System and instead independently surveil areas reported to have high instances of crime.
Also purchased with the grant was a crime-scene laser scanner, a device that allows investigators to digitally recreate crime scenes.
“We set it up on a tripod … and it photographs everything so you can go back and virtually rebuild the room,” Fincher said. “It’s doing images and laser measure so you can get accurate measurements of a crime scene.”
Other devices, like almost $49,000 worth of SWAT tactical vests and two handheld narcotics analyzers for $62,000, were meant to enhance officer safety.
Fincher said with the advent of fentanyl and other dangerous substances makes devices like the narcotics analyzer necessary.
“It allows us to … analyze the substance within the bag without us having to open it up,” Fincher said. “It tells us that this is heroin, this is fentanyl, this is methamphetamine without us having to open it up. So we know not to open bags and expose our officers.”
Fincher said it’s important for departments, large or small, to embrace the technology that comes with law enforcement.
Fincher has been an officer for 30 years, and he said that while there have been significant changes in law enforcement, the fundamentals have remained constant.
While the Blue Line initiative has allowed Martinsville police access to technologies, Fincher said there are still certain technologies on his wishlist.
“One day, dispatchers will be able to view an officer’s actions live,” Fincher said. “In the future I can see artificial intelligence … making things quicker and more seamless. I would like to see an improvement in officer response because when someone needs an officer there, response times can be critical.”