By Destiney Dingess
For HDMedia
Huntington— Forty-six Flock Safety cameras will soon watch the streets of Huntington.
The city’s decision to incorporate AI cameras as part of a crime-fighting tool has been loudly criticized. Mayor Patrick Farrell said he acknowledges public concern about his plan to implement what he says is a new crime-fighting tool, but he stands by his decision. He also promises that people who have access to the system and abuse it will face justice themselves.
In an interview with HD Media on Friday, Farrell said he was not surprised by the overwhelming concern voiced by members of the community. Farrell described public opinion of the Flock cameras as being in “two camps” — a vocal minority and a silent majority.
“There’s a very loud and vocal minority,” Farrell said. “This issue was a flashpoint for their anxiety, and those anxieties came from a lot of different places. Some of it was civil liberties. Nobody wants to live in a surveillance state. There’s fear that comes from that. There’s also privacy concerns when it comes to corporations. I think AI is an anxiety flashpoint, and that this constant state of being tracked, this particular issue was a flashpoint for those kind of anxieties.
“The other side from the vocal minority is the silent majority, and there were hundreds of people online that didn’t chime in,” Farrell added. “There are hundreds of people that have come to me — or through people — to say, ‘Hey, man, we’re with you. Thank you for fighting crime. That’s why we put you there. Thank you for putting public safety job No. 1.’ And they are worried primarily about violent crime and about drugs.”
Farrell said the drug problem in Huntington is real, and the Flock Safety cameras help the police department fight the supply of those drugs.
“We’re turning our attention to the supply side of how do we disrupt that drug marketplace?” Farrell said.
Farrell said the city’s goal is to create a balance to make everyone feel safe.
“I feel very confident that we can hear the concerns of the vocal minority and make sure that the silent majority feel secure in the city, and I think that there’s a line to walk there — that I’m committed to finding where that balance is, and doing the best we can for Huntington,” he said.
More than 50 people attended Monday night’s Huntington City Council meeting, sharing concerns until early Tuesday morning. They urged the council to vote down the two contracts that would allow a professional services contract between the city and Flock Safety the cost of which would be $2.1 million for five years.
The two contracts are a sole-source contract with Flock Group Inc., also known as Flock Safety. The first contract, for the cameras, drones and gunshot detection audio devices, would be for five years and cost $394,785 for the first year and $438,220 per year for the remaining four years. The second contract, for technical support, is for two years with an annual cost of $38,780 for a total contract cost of $77,560.
Cameras vs. crime
The cameras include Flock Safety’s license plate readers that use artificial intelligence to capture images of vehicles and license plates on streets and live video cameras. Huntington will soon also have two drones and two gunshot detection audio devices. The services are meant to help the Huntington Police Department solve crime faster, and Farrell said he hopes the cameras will help deter crime.
The plan to implement the Flock Safety cameras and services in Huntington came after Farrell spoke with mayors throughout the country who reported reductions in crime. He said they all pointed to using license plate readers and gunshot detection systems.
During Monday’s meeting that continuted into early Tuesday morning, people shared concerns of privacy, reputation of the company, reported misuse from officers in other cities and wrongful arrests caused by license plate readers.
People also shared concerns about how the city went about approving the contract and the contract itself. Farrell said the city has been in talks with Flock Safety for nine months; however, the contracts were heard publicly for the first time by the council’s public safety committee on June 22 before being approved two weeks later.
Even with public concern, the council voted for the contracts in a 6-4 vote.
Privacy and policy
Farrell said many questions people have are valid.
He said the city will not use facial recognition, nor will the cameras be used to give speeding tickets. Farrell said information or access would not be given to outside agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the FBI without a warrant.
“I’m committed to having criminal rules in place for abuse,” Farrell said, adding that with the Council’s approval on Monday, “now we have to go through the rule-making of what happens next.”
Farrell said the HPD will have internal policies to follow, and he has already been in discussions with council members to discuss consequences for criminal activity.
“And because I think we’re the first city in the state to really implement this at any scale, I’ve been talking with our state legislators about we need to introduce laws that apply statewide to make sure that this is being used appropriately because what we don’t want to do is we don’t want to trade liberty for safety,” he added.
Farrell said the city will create a “transparency portal” to allow the public to access the policies, in addition to having audits.
“My intent is to open this up to share what we can share appropriately,” Farrell said. “I feel very confident that we can balance both safety and liberty.”
In response to how the police department will be monitored to prevent misuse, Farrell said there will be role-based access as in any electronic system, as well as internal monitoring and a log of searches that will be kept.
While the hardware is expected to be delivered in September, Farrell said the services will not be activated until all policies and proper training are in place.
“We are looking around the country for the best practices,” Farrell said.
Camera locations yet to be determined
Farrell said the city has not finalized where the cameras will be placed.
“We have to have agreements in place,” Farrell said. “We need to make sure that with our community partners, with the schools, with the hospitals, that everyone is comfortable with what it means for their privacy, their patients, their students … all that has to be worked out. So it may take some time.”
A general idea of camera locations has been marked; however, Farrell said the exact placements have not been determined.
“They worked up the idea of where the locations are. We’re trying to get good coverage of the ingress and egress from the city, and there, as part of that, there were drafts of ideas of where they’re going to go, but those aren’t finalized,” he said.
He plans to get input from hospital and school officials on the location of the cameras, as well.
“We know generally the egress points into the city. Everyone can understand, right? When you say you want to cover the bridges, it doesn’t mean we know exactly which pole. When I say it hasn’t been finalized yet, that’s the level of detail we haven’t gotten to, but we know generally how many cameras we needed is why those maps were made.”
Residents and parents have already become concerned after a map of the proposed camera locations was posted online showing some devices in the same vicinity as public schools.
“We were recently made aware of the City of Huntington’s plans regarding the installation of Flock security cameras,” said Ashley Stephens, family and community engagement facilitator for Cabell County Schools, in a written statement Tuesday. “We are in communication with the City. At this time, the Cabell County Board of Education has not been presented with any requests for action regarding Flock security cameras.”
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