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The Tennessee Conservative [By Paula Gomes] –
Tennessee Voices for Victims founder Verna Wyatt attended the Metro Public Health and Safety Committee meeting last week at the request of council member Jordan Huffman to strongly encourage Nashville leadership to consider installing License Plate Readers (LPRs) in Davidson County.
Wyatt was quick to point to the success of LPRs in neighboring counties in combatting crime while also acknowledging Metro’s approval of a private camera network in March.
The FUSUS proposal was shot down last year by just one vote but finally passed this year after assurances that the network would not be used to aid Immigration, Customs and Enforcement agents in finding illegal aliens to deport. A contract has yet to be approved by the Metro Council despite passage of the amended proposal.
Wyatt specifically praised the City of Mt. Juliet’s success rate in catching known criminals from Nashville.
Mt. Juliet adopted their LPR program, Guardian Shield, in 2020. Covering 42 locations at intersections of main roads, Interstate 40 and county lines, it has been successful in recovering hundreds of stolen cars.
Last October, Deputy Chief Tyler Chandler of the Mt. Juliet Police Department (MJPD) told The Tennessee Conservative that the majority of the suspects they encounter through use of the LPRs come from outside the city, overwhelmingly from Nashville.
In his opinion, Chander said, Nashvillians would obviously benefit from LPRs but residents in Mt. Juliet and the broader area would also be helped by Metro adopting a similar system.
With most of Nashville’s bordering cities already operating their own programs, adding Nashville to the mix would give law enforcement access to an even broader pool of data with which to track down dangerous criminals who often travel between neighboring cities. Chandler pointed out that this would lead to quicker identification and arrests across the entire region and reduce overall crime, making Nashville, Mt. Juliet and other nearby cities safer.
Due to no current LPR program in Nashville, Mt. Juliet and other cities shoulder a heavier burden as they end up apprehending suspects from Nashville more often over local suspects. Chandler says that Nashville setting up its own LPR system would reduce the load on Mt. Juliet law enforcement as suspects could potentially be apprehended before crossing over into Wilson County.
Nashville LPRs would also lead to more effective collaboration between cities, not only in faster and more coordinated responses in real time as crimes occur, but also in sharing data for investigating serious crimes.
“In short, if Nashville adopts LPRs, it will contribute to a stronger, more unified approach to public safety, with Mt. Juliet and surrounding communities benefiting from increased support in handling cross-city crime,” said the MJPD Deputy Chief.
Mt. Juliet’s Guardian Shield alerts when license plates of vehicles associated with a crime and on a hotlist – generated from the National Crime Information Center database – are captured. Wanted persons, missing persons, felony-involved vehicles, stolen plates and vehicles are entered into this database by law enforcement agencies.
The system is not used for anything related to traffic enforcement, but instead shields the community from vehicles on the hotlist or to investigate serious crimes which include criminal homicide, forcible rape, kidnapping, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, dangerous drug offenses or wanted persons.
While the technology records video and images of the vehicle, it does not know who is driving or may be in the car, and does not access any license plate database to access personal data or determine who owns the vehicle. Any video or images are discarded after 30 days.
Mt. Juliet’s LPRs recently helped MJPD catch a longtime criminal who turned out to be an illegal alien who had been deported multiple times.
Luis Ginez-Ramirez, 44, was pulled over on July 25th by Mt. Juliet Police (MJPD) after the LPR system alerted officers about a stolen Chevrolet Cruz entering the city from Davidson County. The car had been reported as stolen in Kentucky on July 3rd after a money order was used to purchase the vehicle which turned out to be fraudulent.
Inside the vehicle, officers found printing equipment able to create fraudulent identification cards, many such fraudulent IDs, as well as a system that produced fraudulent money orders and checks.
Ginez-Ramirez had been deported from the U.S. a total of seven different times, and had continued to return without authorization. He was charged with Theft of Property, both misdemeanor and felony Evading Arrest, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, and Possession of Methamphetamine.
Metro Council Members say that the decision to implement LPRs is up to Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, but O’Connell keeps trying to volley the question back to the Council. O’Connell failed to address the issue in his 2025 Metro budget.
Regardless of who is to blame for failing to act, O’Connell has said that once the FUSUS system has been dealt with, that attention can once again be turned to LPRs.
Additional Sources:
https://fox17.com/news/local/new-fusus-camera-network-proposed-after-previous-plan-is-shot-down#
About the Author: Paula Gomes is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative. You can reach Paula at paula@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
2 Responses
The only reason I believe is they are pandering to the criminals. These readers have helped our police officers capture so many criminals. I just wonder how much these people are paid to oppose?
Lucifer’s accursed dimmercraps and their “people” bring on big brother’s surveillance.