Ramsey County Sheriff defends Flock cameras

New tonight, Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher is doubling down on the use of flock cameras with ST Paul, possibly cutting ties with the License Plate Reader Company. Fox nine's Leon Purvis joins us live in ST Paul tonight and Leon, there's a bit of back and forth here with this one. Exactly. Karen ST Paul City Council President Rebecca Nacre is putting forward a resolution calling for both the city and county to cut ties with flock. Meanwhile, Sheriff Bob Fletcher is making the case that the cameras are an important tool when it comes to fighting crime. Now, Nacre posted this video on social media saying she has concerns about privacy and how residents data could be used. Today, Sheriff Fletcher took to Facebook live to defend the technology. He was joined by a sergeant and another deputy and pointed to crime numbers. He says show flock is working. Block has been very instrumental in helping us reduce crime here in Ramsey County. I can't overstate how it has helped us chop crime. I'm gonna show you a little chart here. In fact, uh, violent crime for three years down 40%. And you'll see on this chart that auto thefts are even down 61%. But more than that, this last year, auto thefts are down another 13% 70% reduction in Ramsey County in three years regarding auto thefts. The sheriff also addressed the data privacy concerns. Nacre says her constituents have raised. He says his department does not want bad actors misusing the system. Does it need to be managed and audited? We audited every two weeks. We delete. Yes, we should be required and we do it anyhow. We don't like bad cops. In fact, we fire them as fast as we can identify them. Now we reached out to make her after the sheriff called her out by name. She did not get back to us. Now she is expected to present her resolution at the next ST Paul City Council meeting, which is Wednesday night. We're live in ST Paul. Leon Purvis Fox nine.