05 May License plate readers quietly increased
EDWARDSVILLE – A license plate reader camera system installed on the Clark Bridge in 2018 has been quietly expanded throughout Madison County.
The system alerts police when specific vehicles pass by and was set up because of concerns about criminals coming over from Missouri, and stolen vehicles being taken across the river.
Since then additional cameras have been quietly installed at several locations around the county and more are planned, according to Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons.
Gibbons mentioned the expansion of the system at the Madison County Board’s Judiciary Committee meeting Friday.
“We are participating with local police agencies and in coordination with the DEA to expand the network of license plate readers around Madison County,” he said after the meeting. “We’ve targeted and identified major corridors for drug trafficking and other crimi9nal activity, and are strategically working to place those cameras on bridges and on major thoroughfares where we think those things are happening.”
He said the State’s Attorney’s Office is budgeting $50,000 from drug forfeiture funds this year for the expansion.
“We’re using that money to support construction efforts,” he said. “The DEA is donating the cameras and IT infrastructure.”
The goal is to eventually have all the bridges and major highways covered.
“It allows to track flow of drug traffickers across state lines, through our county and on our interstates,” he said. “It gives us a better tool to push back on the tide of drugs that are flowing through Madison County. We have a heroin highway, but now it carries methamphetamine, and fentanyl.”
The St. Louis region has long been known as a major intersection in drug trafficking, and over the years local, state and federal law enforcement agencies have routinely found drugs and cash being transported through the area.
Gibbons noted that the cameras on the Clark Bridge have been very successful.
“We found in several of our murder cases the ability to pinpoint a specific vehicle and a person in a specific vehicle at a specific time on the bridge has allowed us to create a timeline and we’ve used that in trials,” he said. “It’s been extremely helpful.”
Part of the expanded system is in place.
“We have two of the bridges covered, we have multiple truck stops covered already,” he said. “There are a whole bunch of projects in different stages of planning.”
He declined to go into specifics about locations.
“We want the public to know this is something we’re doing to help protect them, but we don’t want to be too specific because we don’t want to tell the criminals everything,” Gibbons said. “When our goal is reached it will be virtually impossible to mule drugs and drug cash through Madison county without being spotted.”
He also noted that the same restrictions in place for use of the Clark Bridge cameras will apply to the others.
“It doesn’t tie in to registrations, it doesn’t observe traffic violations,” he said. “These are for your high-end, serious crimes. But it does trigger on stolen vehicle alerts.”
Reach reporter Scott Cousins at 618-208-6447.
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