Three of seven police chief finalists' departments use license plate readers

You might get to fume anew if you've not made your peace with the Police Department's red-light-running and speed-enforcement cameras.

Three of the remaining seven candidates in the running to become Cedar Rapids' next police chief speak in glowing terms about another piece of law enforcement technology - the automated license plate reader - now arriving in the face of some criticism in Iowa.

The automated readers, typically affixed to a patrol car, allow patrol officers to scan every license plate they pass as a computer program then determines which vehicles are stolen or have owners wanted for arrest.

Wayne Jerman, assistant police chief at the Montgomery County, Md., Police Department, told the Cedar Rapids Civil Service Commission during candidate interviews last week that his department has been using the license readers for three to four years with success.

Michael Smathers, a captain at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, N.C., Police Department, and Brad Nelson, a captain at the Columbia, Mo., Police Department, both called the license reader a "force multiplier," with Nelson adding it is a "fantastic" piece of equipment.

Jerman was ranked first among the seven candidates by the three-member Civil Service Commission, which based its rankings on candidate resumes, experience, written answers to questions, last week's interviews via computer video and other factors.

Smathers was ranked third and Nelson seventh. The one internal candidate for the police-chief post, Steve O'Konek, Cedar Rapids police captain, was ranked sixth.

Jerman and Smathers and candidate Robert Johnson, a captain and executive officer at the Chicago Police Department, work at the largest police departments among the departments that employ or employed the seven remaining Cedar Rapids chief candidates. The Montgomery County, Md., department has about 800 sworn officers and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, N.C., department about 1,800, the candidates reported in their interviews. The Chicago Police Department has more than 12,000 sworn officers, and Cedar Rapids' department about 200.

Johnson was ranked fourth; Thomas Bergamine, former chief at the Fayetteville, N.C., Police Department, second; and Zim Schwartze, former director of the Columbia/Boone County Office of Emergency Management, Columbia, Mo., fifth.

City Manager Jeff Pomeranz will bring some or all of the candidates to Cedar Rapids later this month for in-person interviews and to meet the public. Pomeranz selects the chief with the advice and approval of the City Council.

On Monday, Acting Cedar Rapids Police Chief Bernie Walther said the department's senior staff members have just begun looking at possibilities to add to the budget for the next budget year. To date, the purchase of automated license scanners has not come up, he said.

Pomeranz has said he hopes to have a new chief in place in September.

The department has been without a permanent police chief since January, when Greg Graham resigned to become chief of the Ocala, Fla., Police Department. Graham had come from the Ocala department to head up the Cedar Rapids department in June 2008.

Graham was responsible for another piece of technology that also is touted as a force multiplier - traffic enforcement cameras.

Those cameras have come under some fire in Iowa, though efforts in the Iowa Legislature to curtail their use did not succeed earlier this year.

Cedar Rapids' Capt. O'Konek was the principal public voice for the department as it explained the value of the traffic enforcement cameras to the public and the City Council.

Several law enforcement departments in Iowa now use the traffic enforcement cameras.

In Iowa, the Polk County Sheriff's Department began using automatic license plate readers a year ago with police departments in Sioux City and Des Moines now set to adopt the technology.

At the same time, the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa said last week that it is seeking information from law enforcement agencies in Iowa about the use of automatic license plate readers, which the group says are an invasion of privacy.

Iowa City Police Chief Sam Hargadine formerly worked at Nelson's department, the Columbia, Mo., Police Department.

Schwartze is one of four finalists for the chief's job in Burlington, Iowa.