Recordpub.com - Hiding from Brimfield police just got harder: New technology can read 65,000 license plates per minute ... from all 50 states

By Melissa Dilley
Record-Courier correspondent
Evading the police is about to get tougher for anyone driving in Brimfield.
In the next month, Brimfield police will have access to technology that can read 65,000 license plates per minute from all 50 states and Mexico.
This technologically complex piece of equipment is an MPH-900 license plate recognition system.
“It’s $20,000 worth of equipment that is going to have a huge impact on helping our residents,” Brimfield Police Chief David Blough said.
The Ohio Attorney General’s office gave the system to Brimfield as a grant. The township police department and the Portage County Sheriff’s office are the only two to have a plate reader in the county.
It consists of three cameras that can be mounted anywhere on a squad car and can even be placed at various locations outside the car.
These cameras take photographs of license plates and run them through a database. If the plate comes back as stolen, if there are warrants placed on the vehicle owner, the owner is a sex offender, has committed crimes against police or is driving under suspension or without a license, a photo of the car and its owner’s information will be sent to the officer’s computer.
The Brimfield department plans to place two cameras on the hood and one on the trunk on a squad car to achieve a 360-degree view.
Before having access to this technology, officers could enter plates into their dashboard computers manually to find any registration information.
Blough said he didn’t have to fill out any paper work for the device, he simply responded to an e-mail stating that the attorney general had a few available.
“We will work with any agency we can,” Blough said. “When something like this becomes available you hope that you are the first agency that people think of.”
Brimfield police work with the Joint Terrorism Taskforce in Cleveland and numerous others, which Blough said has helped the department gain connections outside the county.
The plate reader isn’t the only thing the Brimfield police department has acquired thanks to the chief’s persistence. Last month a Summit County police department donated a fingerprint scanner called Mobile Indent. Blough said he noticed the Summit County department had one available and asked if his station could have it.
The scanner allows police to fingerprint anyone on the spot and determine his or her identity.
Blough said regardless the officer will eventually find out the person is lying about their identity when he runs their information, but the scanner will save them time.
Before having the fingerprint scanner, an officer would have to use their dash computer or make a call to confirm an identity. Since having the plate scanner, one person has been fingerprinted and one admitted to using an alias after the officer asked to take his fingerprint.
Officers have been trained on the fingerprinting equipment and have been using it successfully for more than a month. Blough said he expects the plate reader to arrive within the next few weeks.
Blough said when he sees something his team can use or that will benefit the residents and save some money, he always makes sure to be as persistent as possible.
“We’re real successful in accomplishing a lot with a little,” he said.
Melissa Dilley can be contacted at mdilley@recordpub.com.