Hannibal Police Department to get 10 license plate readers installed throughout city

HANNIBAL, Mo. — The city of Hannibal and its police department took a crucial step toward installing automatic license plate readers at Tuesday’s Hannibal City Council meeting.

The council approved the police department to sign a contract with Flock Safety for $93,100 for three years for 10 license plate readers to be installed in the city.

“This is a project we’ve been wanting to do for a while,” Hannibal Police Chief Jacob Nacke said.

The license plate readers take a still image of the license plates on the back of cars as they go by. Law enforcement can use that data to identify stolen vehicles.

“There’s just a lot out there that our officers can’t get, like we have a lot of thefts or things like that where people will say, ‘Hey, I saw a white truck. I knew it was a white truck,’” Nacke said. “While that’s helpful, and I’m glad we get that information, it doesn’t really help us generate any investigative leads because there are X amount of white trucks in our area.

“This will give us still images of license plates that it collects in that time frame so we can go back and search a time frame to give us a lead on that.”

The Quincy City Council voted in March 2023 to spend $117,600 on a two-year lease with Flock Safety for 20 cameras to be placed around Quincy.

Nacke said the success of these cameras in Quincy and Pike County are indicative of how it can help police in Hannibal and elsewhere.

“In general, the license plate reader data is becoming a norm in law enforcement,” Nacke said. “I think it’s going to be part of the future of helping law enforcement. With the fewer number of officers we have, it’s hard to recruit people, but this data is going to help us. We’ll have fewer officers out there, but we’ll be able to get more information to pass along to our officers to help investigate.”

In addressing the council, Nacke noted that the Hannibal Police Department signed a three-year contract to lock in a price, noting that Flock’s price could go up in the future. The price for the first year is $33,100, compared to $30,000 per year for the final two years. Nacke said the extra $3,100 accounts for the installation of the cameras.

“We built this into our budget going into this year,” Nacke said. “I think it’s a reasonable price to pay. Of course in the future, if we can figure out a way to swing more, if we have success, I’d like to see more, but 10 is a good start.”

Nacke said the department has had multiple conversations about where to put the cameras. It has adopted a strategy for determining that.

“It’s really important to narrow that down,” Nacke said. “When we started looking at it, we could actually find places for 20 cameras, but 10 is a good start. It’s cost effective for us. With that in mind, we’re looking for some of the main corridors on the main arterial routes that go through the town. You might not have (a camera) on your city street, but odds are there’s a main street that you travel on to get to yours that’ll have a camera.”

Councilman Charlie Phillips raised questions regarding the data the cameras collect and how it is used and distributed. Nacke confirmed that any data is purged after 30 days and is only for law enforcement use.

“It’s not sold to third parties,” Nacke said. “As we’ve seen, other agencies have had great success with it. I think we’ll have great success with it as well.”

Nacke could not provide a timeline for when these cameras will be operational.

“I’m not exactly sure, depending on supply chain issues. Hopefully the current events don’t slow things down,” Nacke said. “Hopefully once we get this contract signed and get it turned in, we can get the ball rolling. There’s some other paperwork, things we have to do with the state, to make sure we put it on right away, things like that. But a lot of other agencies have done it, so it’s just completing the paperwork and getting it to the appropriate people.”

In other business, the council:

• Approved street closures for the Hannibal High School homecoming parade on Oct. 23.
• Approved street closures for the Hannibal Jaycees annual Halloween and Christmas parades on Oct. 26 and Dec. 7, respectively.
• Approved and adopted Bill No. 2519-24, authorizing Mayor Barry Louderman to execute a sales agreement and special warranty deed to Enrique R. Chacon for the sale of city-owned property at 2303 Hope for $2,311.