Bismarck Police announced (2) new hybrid squad cars will be added into the fleet that will be equipped with license plate reading technology.
Bismarck Police Department plans to utilize this to aid in crime fighting and to test fuel savings.
The new vehicles will be part of test pilot program
Chief Draovitch said, “while the squad cars cost more upfront, we are anticipating cost savings over the life of the vehicle, which in turn would assist the taxpayers”.
These squad cars will both have cameras located near the lightbar; this is where the new license plate reading technology will be built in.
This technology processes license plates and checks them against hotlists and the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), a national database for stolen vehicles, missing persons, runaway children and other stolen goods.
Officers can then be notified in real-time to any vehicles on the hotlists, and will alert them to stolen vehicles, amber alerts and missing/endangered/vulnerable youth and adults.
The BPD believes this will be a great investigative tool that will allow them to locate vehicles involved in criminal activity and help document crime scenes.
Chief Draovitch says “as criminals use technology to their advantage, we must do the same. We are optimistic this technology will aid in solving our most serious of crimes and locate our citizens that have been reported as missing and/or endangered”.