AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) —The Amarillo police department began using license plate readers back in July 2021.
Amarillo Police Department utilizes license plate readers
As we previously reported, the LPRs automatically read license plates as cars drive by, taking a single picture and entering the plate number into a database.
“Chief Martin Birkenfeld wanted to get, make a 20th-century police department that was fighting 21st-century crime, a 21st-century department fighting 21st-century crime. He was the one who brought in the idea of the technology to work together to give our guys the tools so they can make Amarillo safe and ultimately, he wanted to keep the officers safer too, so when they pull up on a car, each one of their vehicles has LPR technology, so when they pull up to a vehicle, it will alert them, ‘Hey, there is someone dangerous to police, that will fight police or hurt police or hey, this vehicle is reported stolen, or hey this vehicle might have a missing child in it,’” said Lt. Shane Chadwick, commander of the Amarillo Regional Crime Center.
Chadwick said that LPR tech has been around for about 20 years and added that LPR tech offers a lead where they wouldn’t have a lead…