The Monroe County Board of Commissioners approved the purchase of new traffic hardware that would capture photos of passing vehicles' license plates for the county sheriff's department.
According to county attorney Jeff Cockerill, six cameras would be installed at various busy intersections across the county. Some of these cameras could be placed inside Bloomington city limits, though Cockerill said he does not have the final list of sites yet. The cameras are able to be moved easily to different locations.
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If a particular license plate entered into the system was captured, the sheriff's department would then be alerted that the vehicle was in that area.
The technology would be primarily used for emergency situations such as Amber Alerts or Silver Alerts for when children or the elderly go missing. But it could also be used in regular investigations.
"There is an opportunity that if the sheriff's department had a license plate number that was associated with one of its cases, it could enter that into the system to determine if the vehicle was in the area recently," Cockerill said.
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