Menlo Park police plan to add ShotSpotter, surveillance tools

Menlo Park landed on a list no one wants to be on, according to a consultant hired to review the police department’s operations. The number of reported collisions in the city, based on traffic volume, has ranked roughly in the top third of the state in recent years.

The review, carried out by Belcher, Ehle, Medina & Associates for about $25,000, focused on the internal workings of the police department, according to consultant Steve Belcher. “I’ve done a number of these studies; they came out better than many.”

The consultants conducted more than 40 interviews with city staff and employees at other law enforcement agencies that work closely with Menlo Park police, such as the District Attorney’s office, but did not interview community members.

The police department is already taking steps to improve traffic safety by increasing patrols. “(This is) fair warning that the enforcement will be picking up in the very near future,” Menlo Park Police Chief Robert Jonsen said during the April 29 council meeting.

Detection

Along with changes in patrol strategy, the department is looking to enhance its capabilities for data collection and spotting crimes in progress. Chief Jonsen told the Almanac that he’d met with representatives from East Palo Alto on Wednesday, May 1, to talk about expanding the neighboring city’s ShotSpotter gunfire detection system to cover Belle Haven in Menlo Park.

“It’s just a matter of adding a few antennas,” he said. Further down the road the system may add surveillance cameras, something the chief said he’d like to see implemented in other parts of the community as well, perhaps at access points to Menlo Park. Training officers to wear body-mounted cameras is already under way.

Belle Haven’s new police substation, to be located in a strip mall at Hamilton Avenue and Willow Road, is on track to open within the next six months. The 900-square-foot substation would be staffed at least part-time during regular hours, along with officers rotating through while on patrol, and cost the city an estimated $100,000 per year, according to police staff.

License plate readers

As for data collection, mobile automated license plate readers, such as those used by the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office and East Palo Alto, run hundreds of plates a minute within a 360-degree arc, according to Menlo Park Police Chief Robert Jonsen.

While some jurisdictions mount readers at fixed intersections, Chief Jonsen said the mobile option offers advantages. “You can move around all over the city, to different places and different hotspots.”

The department plans to start with one reader and hopefully go to three – one per patrol beat — in the future, according to the chief. The data would likely be retained for at least one year. Representatives from the Sheriff’s Office, which started using the readers about five years ago, said their agency uses five readers, purchased by the vehicle theft task force, and keeps the information for up to one year.

The American Civil Liberties Union has been keeping an eye on how law enforcement handles the data they gather.

Chris Conley, an attorney whose work with ACLU Northern California focuses on privacy and technology, said the best practice is to keep the data for as short a period as possible and to limit access. Tiburon, for example, keeps information from automated license plate readers for only 30 days unless it relates to a specific criminal investigation.

“The law enforcement value of old records not retained in connection with any specific investigation is extremely low, while those records continue to pose a privacy risk to individuals,” he said.

Attorneys investigating wrongful convictions for the Innocence Project had a different take – some told the media that old data helps determine whether the right person was arrested for a crime.

Retention isn’t the only issue raising concerns with privacy advocates. Menlo Park, like many other agencies using automated license plate readers, would pool its data with other jurisdictions that could access the information with a username and password, said Chief Jonsen.

In effect, that compiled data can function as a type of GPS tracking without a warrant. Mr. Conley said that poses a privacy risk because the data lets law enforcement construct a comprehensive record of someone’s activities – for example, is a car regularly seen at a health clinic? How about a protest or church service or job fair or speed dating event?

“These issues are exacerbated if information from (automated license plate readers) is shared with other agencies or combined with other data sources to build an even more detailed record of innocent Californians’ legitimate and even constitutionally protected activities,” he said.

Chief Jonsen said he understands the concerns, but the courts have held that there’s no expectation of privacy for vehicles on a public street. Officers already run plates manually, and log the inquiries; automation makes the process faster and captures more plates.

“The readers have been really valuable, in my past experience; that would apply up here as well,” said the chief, a 26-year veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “Sometimes we don’t know about a crime for weeks or months, and it would be a shame to not have the data.”