MINNEAPOLIS — The screen on the black handheld device began firing off a string of alphanumeric characters. The text seemed indecipherable, but in fact was the serial number for an external battery that powered a nearby camera that records the license plates of passing cars.
The camera, built by Flock Safety, is just one of 19 placed strategically around two adjacent shopping centers that Straight Arrow News visited in a suburb of Minneapolis last week. Those 19 are part of more than 300 known to be operating in the Twin Cities metro area, placed both by public and private entities.
The cameras are contributing to widespread unease amid an aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration in Minnesota. Tensions were high after the deployment of some 3,000 federal agents to the state, and the killings of two U.S. citizens by immigration officers inflamed the atmosphere…