New tool is extra eyes for police

n Camera matches tag number to data in state computers

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by GARY SMITH Detective Charles Baker demonstrated the Mobile Plate Hunter which helps the Charles County Sheriff’s Office’s auto theft unit spot license tags on vehicles reported stolen. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

After a few seconds, Baker has found his gap. He accelerates onto U.S. 301 where his camera system, called a tag scanner, detects a problem: a white jeep has an expired registration. Without even drifting in his lane, Baker checks the alarm and silences it with a few taps of the computer screen.

‘‘They’re an extra pair of eyes that’s solely got one job,” said Baker, head of the auto theft unit of the sheriff’s department. ‘‘All we do is drive.”

The Charles County Sheriff’s Office bought Baker’s tag scanner in 2005 for $22,000 with a grant from the Maryland Vehicle Theft Prevention Council, according to Sheriff Rex W. Coffey (D).

Coffey said the device is so effective, he hopes to buy two more for patrol cars.

‘‘It’s a real up-and-coming crime fighting tool,” he said.

The system works as two infrared cameras photograph license plates. The device then uses character-recognition software to make sense of the images, comparing the tags to a database of stolen vehicles and Motor Vehicle Administration records. A laptop inside the cruiser keeps the police officer in the loop.

On the dark green car Baker is driving, the left camera stares straight ahead and checks oncoming traffic, while the right one is cocked a little to the side and monitors parked cars. But Baker said the cameras, held to the car by ‘‘super-strong magnets,” can be positioned anywhere on the police cruiser.

‘‘Most people think it’s a radar unit. You get some weird looks,” Baker said.

Cars fitted with the system of infrared cameras and finger-thick cables do suffer a bit in the style department. But despite its awkward looks, the device has impressive abilities.

The tag scanner can see in the dark and read through license plate covers, according to Baker. And if it can’t distinguish between a three and an eight, it simply runs searches for both options.

Since the Charles County Sheriff’s Office bought the scanner, the device has read 168,000 tags, identified 69 stolen cars and 65 stolen license plates and helped secure 29 arrests, according to Diane Richardson, the sheriff’s office spokeswoman.

‘‘And now, with the new MVA records, the sky’s the limit,” said Baker about the tag scanner’s recently acquired ability to check tags for suspended driver’s licenses, overdue emissions tests and expired registrations.

Out on the road, the scanner proves it certainly can cast a wide net. In an eight-hour shift, it is capable of checking 3,000 to 4,000 tags against a stolen vehicle database, according to Baker. Every time it scans a plate, which is pretty much constantly, the system makes a ‘‘bloop” noise. The beeping could get annoying, but Baker said he doesn’t mind it.

‘‘I like to hear [the noise] to know it’s working, but you can turn it off,” he said.

When a tag comes up stolen, expired or without a current emissions certificate, the visual and sound effects are a bit more dramatic — a siren starts blaring, and the computer screen flashes red.

‘‘It’s very sensitive. It picks up everything,” Baker said after the siren went off on a restaurant’s Sunday special board.

‘‘But you’d rather it be oversensitive.”

At the end of the excursion, the tag scanners haven’t recovered a stolen car, but Baker said it’s a good feeling when it does.

‘‘Besides your house, a car is one of the most personal things.”

Only a little over a week ago, the tag scanner led to a car recovery and arrest at a shopping center on Mattawoman Beantown Road in Waldorf. After officers located the stolen car, they chased down and arrested a 17-year-old from Waldorf on July 15.

The Charles County Sheriff’s Office is not alone in enjoying the services of a tag scanner. The Maryland State Police have five of the devices and are training all of their barracks to use them, said Elena Russo, a state police spokeswoman.

Russo said the Washington Area Vehicle Enforcement team, a coalition of local law enforcement agencies aimed at cutting down on car theft, used the scanners to recover 407 stolen vehicles last year. ‘‘That’s pretty significant,” she said.

The tag scanners have even helped track down a murder suspect, according to Detective Dave Gross, a WAVE team member from the Charles County Sheriff’s Office.

‘‘We solved a homicide in [Washington,] D.C., because the camera system comes with a [global positioning system],” Gross said.

According to Gross, officers were able to search the system’s 30-day memory for where the scanner read the suspect’s license plate. Authorities were able to find the suspect after they narrowed the search to a 4-by-4 block area, Gross said.

‘‘The technology is amazing,” Baker said. ‘‘It’s always taking pictures, steadily working.”