Wichita police plan to use a $1.6 million grant to increase surveillance around town

Wichita police are going to be adding more cameras around town.

During a news conference Wednesday at City Hall, U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran announced $1.6 million in federal grant funds for more cameras and the Wichita Police Department’s Flock automated license plate reading camera system. The camera readers take photos of vehicles and record the make, model, color and license plate number and alert police about specific vehicles they are looking for.

Police vehicles have had license plate readers on them since 2014, the department said. The Flock system being put on street lights started as a pilot program in November 2020. It’s helped in investigations of homicides and recovering stolen vehicles.

Wichita police spokesperson Trevor Macy said the Flock system has helped recover $4 million in property and around 375 stolen vehicles. He said it also has helped police make nearly 400 arrests, including a woman who ran over and then shot a stranger riding a bicycle last year at 13th and Oliver. The man died from his injuries.

Macy said the grant dollars would add 50 new Flock cameras, upgrade cameras in interrogation rooms and add other surveillance camera equipment. The department currently has 135 Flock cameras, he said.

Interim chief Troy Livingston said the department would look at statistical data to decide where to put the additional cameras.

“Obviously ... major highways (or roads) that have quick access to leave a crime scene and get out of the city is appropriate,” he said.

The announcement also includes $140,000 for cameras at the Sedgwick County Jail. Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter said the money would add about 100 cameras to the roughly 425 already have at the jail.

He said the cameras will help offset staffing shortages at the jail.

None of the cameras have audio, which has been a point of contention in Sedgwick County after 17-year-old Cedric Lofton was fatally injured while in custody at Wichita’s Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center. Surveillance video shows workers held Lofton in the prone position for 45 minutes. The workers said Lofton never said he couldn’t breathe before losing consciousness. There was no audio of the incident.

Easter said audio wouldn’t be effective in the jail anyway. He said the cameras will go in pods where there are about 50 inmates. The pods are loud and cameras have to be placed up high so that inmates won’t damage them, he said.