PEORIA, Ill. — Peoria experienced a high number of violent crimes in 2021, many of them involving vehicles.
Peoria Police Chief Eric Echevarria told WMBD’s “The Greg and Dan Show”, they’ve got a new tool to help solve crime.
“They say that nationally, seven in ten crimes are committed with a vehicle. And, we want to be able to obtain objective evidence through this purpose-built device called the License Plate Recognition System,” Echevarria said.
16 LPR cameras are being strategically placed in areas of Peoria that have experienced a lot of crime.
The PPD doesn’t have time to monitor all those cameras 24/7, Echevarria said, but they will be useful.
“But, if there’s a crime that occurs in that area, we owe it the community and those residents who live in and around those areas to be able to have leads and bring those that committed the crimes into the court system,” Echevarria said.
The LPR cameras won’t be used to catch speeders.
“It has some audio capability to it, it has a gunshot capability, so it gives us something to compare our ShotSpotter to as well,” Echevarria said.
In regards to privacy issues, Echevarria said the PPD is working on policy to specifically address that…making sure the data is stored only for a certain amount of time.
