Sheriff says Flock cameras making difference locating missing people

License plate readers also help solve crimes, Bourke tells local officials

Photos by Tom Rivers: Orleans County Sheriff Chris Bourke, back left, and Chief Deputy Torry Tooley gave a presentation on Tuesday evening to local officials in the monthly Orleans County Association of Municipalities meeting at the Tavern on the Ridge.

ALBION – Orleans County Sheriff Chris Bourke is a believer in the Flock automated license plate reader technology.

The Sheriff’s Office in November started using Flock and the cameras have helped locate missing teens and elderly drivers with dementia, while also steering deputies and investigators in the right direction to solve crimes.

“It is one more tool in our tool box,” Bourke told about 30 local officials on Tuesday during the monthly meeting of the Orleans County Association of Municipalities. “We’ve had very good results so far.”

The County Legislature in 2024 approved a $203,450 contract with Flock over five years to install 13 Flock cameras in the county. The county has made one payment so far at $47,450 and it was covered through a state technology grant, Bourke said.

Twelve of the Flock cameras have gone up since November. One more will be set up soon in Shelby. The cameras are mounted on poles. They read license plates on the back end of vehicles.

They store a snapshot of the vehicle for 30 days. Bourke and Chief Deputy Torry Tooley said the cameras don’t take videos, and don’t identify people by their faces. Flock doesn’t continuously track people or vehicles, and it doesn’t replace investigators or human judgement, Bourke and Tooley said.

Chief Deputy Torry Tooley said the Flock cameras have been helpful pursuing leads in cases.

Flock has been in the news a lot lately with concerns over mass surveillance and an abuse by a few law enforcement officers who used the cameras to try to track ex-girlfriends and other people of interest outside of investigations. The Flock system also can send alerts to administrators if there are irregular searches.

Bourke and Tooley said the Sheriff’s Office has controls in place to make sure there is limited access to only the sheriff, undersheriff, two chief deputies and two supervising deputies. All of the searches are logged.

In the first eight months of the system – from November through July 10 –  there were 542 searches by Orleans County Sheriff’s Office with 200 searches (36.9 percent) for larceny theft investigations, 45 (8.3 percent) for traffic infraction and 38 searches (7.0) for missing person or runaway.

Sheriff’s officials also used Flock to search in cases for stolen property (5.4 percent), motor vehicle theft (5.2 percent), drugs/narcotics (5.2 percent), a wanted person (3.3 percent) and damage/vandalism (3.3 percent).

The searches for missing persons has gone up since July 10 and the Flock cameras were very helpful in locating a missing teen from Albion who was in Niagara Falls, Tooley said.

“This is a great investigative tool for the Sheriff’s Office,” he said. “It’s helped us solve crimes and finding missing people.”

Sheriff Chris Bourke said Flock cameras are “another tool in our tool box.”

The Sheriff’s Office for about 20 years had one license plate reader on a patrol car. The Flock cameras operate the same way except are mounted on a pole instead of a car, Bourke said.

Some of the local officials at Tuesday’s meetings asked if the leaders from each municipality were asked to have a Flock camera mounted in their municipality. Bourke said no municipal permission was asked because the cameras are either on the public right-of-way or private property.

Albion Town Councilman Terry Wilbert said the local officials should be notified at least as a courtesy “because we get the questions from the public.”

Darlene Benton, an Albion councilwoman, asked if the Flock data is shared with ICE. Tooley said the data isn’t shared with federal agencies, but can be with police non-federal agencies.

One of the Flock cameras in Kendall, at Sand Road and Route 18, has been defaced. Bourke said many of the cameras have been targeted by vandals around the country. Those vandals should know they will be prosecuted for damaging government property.