Law enforcement officials say the suspect in an apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump was taken into custody with the use of license plate readers, a technology that's been used in several high-profile cases across the San Diego area – and opened up a conversation about privacy.
Ryan Routh was arrested during a traffic stop Sunday after authorities say he fled Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course, where the FBI said he waited for 12 hours with a semiautomatic rifle.
A Secret Service agent saw him and opened fire, officials said, prompting Routh to flee the scene. Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said a witness then came forward with a photo of the vehicle.
“Our real time crime center put it out to the license plate readers, and we were able to get a hit on that vehicle on I-95 as it was headed into Martin County,” Bradshaw said during a news conference Sunday. “We got a hold of Martin County Sheriff's Office, alerted them, and they spotted the vehicle and pulled it over and detained the guy.”
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About 500 license plate readers have been installed across San Diego, run by the San Diego Police Department, which said they’ve been used to make 144 arrests.
“Time and time again, the system has proved invaluable to this organization, and it's enhanced public safety for all of San Diego,” SDPD Capt. Jeff Jordon said at an August news conference announcing the arrest of a homicide suspect who had fled the city and was taken into custody in Orange County using a license plate reader.
Jordon said the technology enables police to enter license plate information into several systems, including the National Crime Information Center and the California Stolen Vehicle System, among others.
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“That allows us to send out information to officers locally, as well as the state and nationally,” Jordon said. “So if somebody comes across this vehicle, they're able to identify the vehicle, its involvement with the crime and initiate a traffic stop.”
License plate readers were also used last week to identify a man charged with a series of drive-by pellet gun shootings in Hillcrest.
While police and proponents of the technology say it’s instrumental in solving these kinds of crimes, some say it’s raised major concerns over privacy and individual rights.
“This is an incredibly powerful system,” said Seth Hall of San Diego Privacy, a group pushing for greater oversight of this kind of surveillance.
“Being able to track where people are at any given time is an incredibly new and powerful technology and people are worried that while we are enjoying some of the benefits that these kinds of powerful devices can give us, that we are not also paying attention to some of the risks and potential harms that can come along with that kind of technology,” Hall said.
He cited abuses of the system – like a Kansas police chief who resigned after using the technology to stalk his ex-girlfriend – as a reason for concern.
“We need to be mindful and potentially prioritize how these devices get controlled,” Hall said. “How do we make sure that the people who are using them are using them for the reasons that we think they should and not for harmful reasons?”
Hall said his group has made recommendations to the city of San Diego on how to improve the use of license plate readers, including shortening the length of time videos are retained. San Diego police say video footage is deleted after 15 days and data after 30 days.
“At the end of the day, you know, here in America, I think that this technology should probably require a warrant to be used,” Hall added. “That's how we've done things in this country. That's how we've been successful in this country.”
Hall said greater transparency is also needed, pointing to the publicly available map of cameras as one area that needs to be updated and maintained with more accuracy. He said he’s found license plate readers that have been installed across the city that are not added to that map maintained by the police department.
“Our elected leaders are going to have to be the ones that acknowledge that there is risk that comes with using these systems, and they’re going to have to commit to a level of transparency and accountability that is commensurate with the level of power that they have been given with this technology,” Hall said.
