HANCOCK COUNTY, Ind. — Newly-installed technology is helping police track down criminals in central Indiana.
It's a type of traffic camera Hancock County started using on the roads this month. Deputies there now have a new picture-taking partner, scanning cars to solve crimes.
"We get alerts if a stolen car comes across one of those cameras," Hancock County Sheriff Brad Burkhart explained, "or if a wanted person crosses over into our county."
Fifteen motion-activated license plate readers were recently installed at intersections in Hancock County as an extra set of eyes for police.
A 16th camera will go active soon.
"We need every tool we can get to help solve crime, investigate crime and maybe help find people if necessary, whether it's Silver Alerts, Amber Alerts, I mean, this particular system will help do all that," Burkhart said.
Hancock County is the latest of dozens of local police agencies to use the Flock Safety system, from Zionsville to Cumberland to Noblesville.
Many neighborhood homeowners associations are installing them, too.
"We were having some issues with a lot of mail theft and porch pirates," Pickwick Commons HOA President Jayson Parker told 13 News in January. "We had felt we needed to do something to improve the safety of our neighborhood."
In Hancock County, the cameras, which cost $2,500 each and are currently paid for through commissary and crash report funds, found a stolen car just last week and tracked someone with a warrant to North Carolina.
Police agencies can share information from city-to-city or state-to-state.
The license plate readers also can help investigators if there's a burglary, for instance, with a witness description like a gray pick-up.
"So, we can go in and we can actually search 'gray pick-up truck' and see if there were any gray pickup trucks that crossed one of those cameras. If so, maybe that's one of our suspects," Burkhart explained. "Then we can run it through this database and see if anything matches up."
Burkhart says it's important to note this isn't "Big Brother" watching you. What the cameras won't do is scan and hold onto your license plate if your car's not stolen or connected to a crime.
"If you're a law-abiding citizen and you cross the camera, I don't necessarily care about that. We are looking for criminal activity," Burkhart said. "We don't look for speeders. We're not looking to fine people for that. This system doesn't actually even do that."
But the sheriff said it does help deputies crack cases that they otherwise wouldn't have seen.
The cameras are leased for one year.
Burkhart is now working with the county council to find funding to keep the cameras in use in the future.