WHEELING - Criminals on the run from justice may find it harder to lay low in the Friendly City, thanks to a new technology that will be used by Wheeling police.
With assistance from excess state funding from 2007, a Homeland Security grant totaling $21,375, the city of Wheeling will have a police cruiser equipped with a license plate reader. Named the Mobile Plate Hunter 900, the reader was purchased from Elsag North America.
Police Chief Robert Matheny said the device serves several purposes in criminal justice.
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A license plate reader is installed on a Steubenville police cruiser. It’s the same technology Wheeling police plan to employ.
"It's a piece of equipment you'd attach to a patrol car," he said. "It reads the license plate of all vehicles that pass it."
Statistics, such as the image, time, date and GPS location, related to that recording are stored into a system in Charleston.
In monitoring regular local traffic, the reader will log trends in individual travel routes and parking. For example, if at this time next year someone with an outstanding warrant is on the run, then that person may have driven past the reader on several occasions while posted on W.Va. 2. Police would then know a good place to start looking.
Elsag's official website said the device captures thousands of plates during a single shift, a maximum speed of 3,600 captures per minute, to be exact. Matheny was referring to what Elsag calls "pattern recognition."
Additionally, because it is stored in a statewide database, if that person flees to Huntington, where the police department already has a reader, then the device in that area would be able to alert officers to the presence of that person.
Matheny said another advantage is the identification of stolen vehicles. If a driver is using that vehicle, then the reader would alert the officer to make a traffic stop.
One instance outside of Wheeling where a plate reader worked in this way is in the tracking of an armed bank robber from Maryland, according to a press release from Elsag earlier this month.
Zachary Scott Shanaberger, 30, of Westminster, Md., allegedly stole a 2003 Honda Accord to make his getaway. While sleeping in that vehicle in Woodbine, Md., a roving officer scanned all of the plates in the parking lot and the scanner sounded an alert that the vehicle was reported stolen. Shanaberger was found inside and arrested without incident.
Elsag also reported successes in tracking down tax delinquents and those ducking out on paying parking fines. According to the company, the reader is a way for a municipality to earn revenue. Other features Elsag cites are witness identification, placing suspects at a scene and terrorist interdiction.
Users of the plate reader database will include the FBI, DEA, U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Federal Marshals, Matheny said. Also, the state of Ohio already has 100 readers in their Homeland Security regions.
Aside from Charleston, Wheeling police will be the fifth agency in the state to receive a reader. Those that currently have them are the Cabell County sheriff and police in Huntington, Barboursville and Milton. Clarksburg police are currently in the process of obtaining one.
"It's great to be on the forefront of all this," Matheny said.
Looking to the future, Matheny said he is looking toward stationary license plate readers that could report the location of a stolen vehicle, for example, in a place where an office is not. Many agencies in Ohio also have these and have been used for large scale felonies and petty crimes such as revealing the identity of a driver failing to stop at a traffic light.
Aside from the plate reader, all 20 police vehicles could also receive a mobile thermal printer with a vote from city council Dec. 7. A Highway Safety Grant will pay $44,700 for 100 of these printers for the entirety of West Virginia Region 4, according to Matheny. The printers will be used for occasions such as creating tickets at traffic stops.