Aug. 31, 2026
By Jonathan Rich
BrevardBeagle.com
About 75 people attended Tuesday night’s public information session at the Mary C. Jenkins Community and Cultural Center regarding the potential use of Automatic License Plate Reader cameras by the Brevard Police Department with local officials addressing the controversial technology that is surrounded by concerns related to its proper use, data storage, and personal privacy,
Automatic License Plate Reader cameras, also referred to as ALPRs, are already in use as a tool for law enforcement agencies across the country to digitally record and share vehicle license plates visible on public roadways and public property.
Eight Flock-branded ALPR cameras were installed off Transylvania County roadways in 2024, and a total of 14 cameras are currently in use by the Transylvania County Sheriff’s Office to investigate stolen vehicles, missing persons, and other suspicious illegal activity.
Tuesday night Brevard City Manager Wilson Hooper began the dialogue about ALPR cameras by explaining that the Brevard Police Department has an offer from a technology supplier to add three AXON Outpost cameras to the local law enforcement agency’s budget this year, and city officials wanted to discuss the potential impact these devices could have on the community.
“We took this proposal to the Public Safety Committee for you, they discussed it on three different occasions and then referred it on to the full Council for discussion,” Hooper said of the $79,600 a year five year contract, which will be further discussed by Brevard City Council on Sept. 8. “That’s why we are here tonight. We know that there are strong feelings on this issue.”
Listen to the entire special meeting recorded by the City of Brevard
Brevard Police Chief Christy Wentzell told the audience that the offer for the AXON cameras came across her desk when she began researching replacing her officers’ outdated body cameras and tasers, and the technology supplier offered adding this type of ALPR camera as part of an overall upgrade.
Chief Wentzell said the Brevard Police Department’s body cameras were purchased in 2021 and the current tasers were purchased in 2018. There is not any type of warranty or even replacement parts available to repair the antiquated equipment, and she began researching the AXON cameras with caution because of incidents involving the technology’s improper and illegal use within other law enforcement agencies across the country as well as the question of who owns the data once it is lawfully obtained.
Click here for the City of Brevard’s information on ALPR cameras
She then turned to her PowerPoint presentation to explain that the ALPR technology only records a vehicle’s license plate as it travels on public property and then that information is digitally shared in real time with other law enforcement agencies to track suspected illegal activity.
View Chief Wentzell’s PowerPoint presentation on ALPR cameras
Chief Wentzell added that any potential use of this system would be fully documented by her officers at the time of an incident and that any abuse of the technology would result in immediate consequences and termination of employment.
“The goal for the system and the proposal is to have faster, more focused investigations, not broad monitoring of people or individuals,” Wentzell said of how her officers could use ALPR cameras in the future. “It has potential public safety benefits. It can assist when the vehicle is connected to an AMBER alert, silver alert, missing juvenile, or assist a person in crisis.”
“It helps identify vehicles, reporting, stolen or displaying stolen plates. It may reduce the time needed to locate a vehicle in an exigent circumstance. It may help locate a vehicle linked to a criminal or motor vehicle investigations and provides information that helps verify risk for officers before contact,” Wentzell told the audience before delving into the details of how one of her officers had assisted Asheville Police in tracking and arresting the driver of a tractor-trailer stolen in Arkansas that had been spotted in western North Carolina.
She also stressed that if the Brevard City Council does approve the Police Department’s purchase and use of AXON Outpost cameras and systems, any data obtained would be owned and stored by local law enforcement and not an outside entity or automatically shared with any other agency.
“There are safeguards in the contract in place that says the data gathered belongs to the city of Brevard,” she said. “It’s proprietary to the Police Department so that we own and control the data,” she said. “AXON cannot sell the data. The images collected by the ALPR camera, as part of the contract, prohibits them from selling it. Selling it would be a breach of contract.”
Wentzell summarized her comments on the topic by telling the Jenkins Center audience exactly how the ALPR cameras, if approved by Brevard City Council next week, would be used by the Brevard Police Department.
“It is an investigative tool that will give my officers the ability to solve more cases,” she said. “One of the questions that was brought before the Public Safety Committee was how is this going to reduce crime. My answer was, ‘It’s not going to reduce crime, but what it will allow us to do is have an increased likelihood that we will be able to solve that crime, or that we will be able to locate a missing person faster.'”
Before opening up the meeting to residents’ comments and concerns, Brevard City Attorney Mack McKeller addressed some of the legal questions surrounding the use of ALPR cameras in terms of law enforcement and privacy concerns that have been raised by district court judges.
“Flock cameras, in the context of criminal cases, are legal,” McKeller said, “but every case that I read also has a further warning that says, ‘Hey, they could become more pervasive.'”
“When somebody says the Flock cameras are illegal or ‘Didn’t it violate my right to privacy?’ Until the court says it violated your right to privacy, it doesn’t because the court created the right to privacy. Those words are not in the Fourth Amendment,” McKeller continued. “When I taught Constitutional law, I spent about a semester going over what the Fourth Amendment means, but that’s essentially what the legality is. Is it possible that this could become part of a larger issue? That’s part of a legitimate concern. Some of these cases also say that if the public decides that they feel that’s too high a level of an invasion of their privacy, the public has the right to have their representatives pass a law to not do it.”
The contract for the Brevard Police Department’s new body cameras, tasers, and options for adding AXON Outpost cameras will be discussed by Brevard City Council at its Tuesday, Sept. 8 meeting scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. at Brevard City Hall, 95 West Main Street.