Latest / Rick Outzen: (we don’t) color on the dog / Pulling the Plug on Flock
Transcript
- Rick Outzen: Welcome to We Don't Color On the Dog. We got with the Saskami County Sheriff Chip Simmons. big news on flock cameras. Governor Sheriff Chip Simmons: Okay. Rick Outzen: yesterday removed them, asked law enforcing law enforcement agencies to remove them from state highways. You've made a decision locally, haven't you, Chip? Sheriff Chip Simmons: Yeah, you know, this has been coming for the last couple of weeks, really. We've had some serious discussion on law enforcement versus privacy issues and where's that balance. And while we had some pretty strict guidelines here at the Escambia County Sheriff's Office, we understand not every agency does. And I also understand as the elected sheriff here in Escambia County that. It matters what the public thinks. It matters about what they think about how we enforce the laws. And as as part of that, we have chosen, and we'll put it out here any minute now, that we will also suspend the use of our license plate reader system. And the hope there is that there will be some clarity moving forward, whether it's legislative from the governor's office, but potentially the a new governor, or Rick Outzen: Mm-hmm. Sheriff Chip Simmons: the the judiciary the themselves. So again, we we understand there's a value to it. But I also understand that that we want we want people to have a c level of comfort with regards to how we enforce these laws. Rick Outzen: About how many cameras do y'all have employed out there? Sheriff Chip Simmons: We have about twenty four locations. Each location could have Rick Outzen: Okay. Sheriff Chip Simmons: a number of cameras because we catch traffic going all the all the directions. So seven of Rick Outzen: Mm-hmm. Sheriff Chip Simmons: our locations were on state roadways, which would have affected, as you can imagine, about a third of our cameras are on state roadways. So we would have had to have removed those within thirty days, which again diminishes the system itself. A lot of my colleagues, other sheriffs have already suspended it. we were kind of holding, hoping that There'd be some clarity so that we can continue with this this quality system that we have here. But you know, it's it's it's it's important to us, as I mentioned, for the community to be to know what we're doing, to be transparent about what we're doing, but also support the manner in which we do it. Rick Outzen: You know, when you look at this, w did you get any kind of f you know, warning over the weekend that this was coming out on Monday or Sheriff Chip Simmons: No, I can tell you that we have been working with the Florida Sheriff's Association and we had planned later this week to to discuss that with the mayor's leadership with the governor's leadership team. and also we have a legislative meeting here in a couple of weeks down in Lake Mary, Florida, to discuss things like this. And and we'll obviously still talk about that, but we had no indication, or I certainly had no indication, and nor was I privy to any information. that the governor would would do this to take this action. Now we all heard his press conference and he he talked about being concerned about or having some concerns about it. but but this move surprised surprised all of us. We felt like we could have some discussions and we could you know have this thing you know discussed get to a point where there's some a a good move forward or a good path forward. Rick Outzen: Yeah, it it's for your true crime center, a real time crime center, it's have have these type of cameras been valuable? Sheriff Chip Simmons: Yeah, we've made no secret about the fact that we have had dozens of cases that were aided in part or in in whole by the license plate reader system. but so yes, that it has really been a value to us. It's we it's just part of the real-time crime center. We still have you know, some some availability down there with some private cameras and some different some neighborhood cameras that we have still. so we still have the real time crime center. It'll still be up and running, but we will no longer be tracking license plates, gathering information on the vehicular traffic here in Escambia County.