The Redlands Police Department in California had a need: to solve more theft and burglary crimes. Together with Flock Safety and their community, the Redlands Police worked to address this need. Here’s how they did it.

Challenge: Resources Are Constrained and Police Are Stretched Think

With a population of a little over 70,000 citizens, Redlands, California is a small city. Despite their city’s size, the Redlands Police issues over 1,000 case numbers a month. Many of these are property crimes.

Neighborhoods, gas stations, and construction sites in Redlands had been experiencing theft and burglary. Unfortunately, many of the cases were remaining unsolved due to a lack of actionable evidence.

To solve more cases and keep their city safe, the Redlands PD needed to maximize their resources and work with their community to get the actionable evidence they needed.

Like many police departments, finite resources prevent the Redlands PD from being everywhere at once in their community. They needed a high-functioning tool that sees the details detectives look for that would fit their budget and help officers make the best use of their time.

They found a tool that would serve each of these needs and more: Flock Safety’s license plate readers.

Flock Safety as a Force Multiplier

Within the first 2 weeks of installing their new Flock Safety license plate readers, the Redlands PD was able to capture evidence on a car theft and make an arrest.

But they didn’t accomplish this alone.

They were able to maximize the value of their Flock camera by working with private citizens.

The Case Facts:

• A burglar broke into a restaurant in the middle of the night and stole merchandise.
• Officers determined the suspect fled the parking lot in a light blue Ford SUV.
• A nearby Flock Safety camera captured the license plate of a light blue Ford SUV less than a minute after it exited the parking lot.
• Detectives then determined that same SUV entered an adjacent city minutes after completing the first burglary. The adjacent city also experienced two nighttime restaurant burglaries with the same MO.
• Detectives placed the suspect vehicle’s license plate in their Flock camera’s custom hotlist.
• Within three days, detectives received a Hot List alert when a Flock camera captured the vehicle returning to the area of the first burglary.
• The Flock camera system identified the hot tag and sent alerts to the Redlands PD.

Several community leaders are now engaged to install Flock Safety cameras in neighborhoods and increase police coverage.

This allows the Redlands PD to easily multiply their efforts in their jurisdiction without incurring extra need for budget or time.

Learn how Flock Safety can work for your agency or community — speak to a consultant today!