Putnam Sheriff Defends Street Camera System

County uses dozens of license-plate readers Deputies with the Putnam County Sheriff's Office have used license-plate readers in Philipstown and other municipalities to nab suspects such as the gun-wielding man who robbed a gas station on Route 9D and the man who pleaded guilty to killing a taxicab driver in Southeast. But those successes are tempered by reports of misuse elsewhere, such as an Albany sheriff's investigator charged Sept. 9 with searching data captured by that county's LPR cameras to track a former girlfriend and four acquaintances. In addition, Putnam's data is stored with the Real Time Crime Center in Westchester County, whose police department is accused in a lawsuit of illegally tracking drivers and allowing access by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Amid a nationwide backlash against license-plate readers and other surveillance technologies, Putnam Sheriff Brian Hess assured the three members of the Legislature's Protective Services Committee on Sept. 9 that the county's system is used only for solving local crimes and that it flags officers if they violate prohibitions on how the data is used. As in Beacon, the Putnam cameras are not connected to the national Flock network. Police Chief Tom Figlia is scheduled to address the City Council on Monday (Sept. 21) about his agency's use of LPRs. Hess said access to the database of license-plate numbers collected by Putnam's 48 cameras is limited to his deputies; local officers from Carmel, Kent, Cold Spring and Westchester County; the New York City Police Department and state police in New York and Connecticut. Before being appointed and then elected sheriff last year, Hess commanded the Real Time Crime Center and helped build its LPR system. Under a policy approved by the Putnam Legislature in 2023, LPR data can only be searched for criminal investigations and accessed by federal or out-of-state agencies with the sheriff's approval. Deputies using the system must undergo training and are prohibited from using captured data "for personal, curiosity, financial, political or other non-official purposes," or an investigation based on "religious, political or social views or activities" or "participation in a noncriminal organization or lawful event." The policy also bans using the technology to target someone based on their ethnicity, immigration status, race, sexual orientation or exercise of First Amendment rights. Automated "audits" flag irregularities in searches, and "any misuse of any of those systems will result in discipline," said Hess. "Are there concerns? Yes. But they [cameras] are effective," he added. "We're not just collecting data to collect data." Former Sheriff Robert Langley Jr. introduced LPRs to Putnam, including the cameras mounted in 2021 on Route 9D just south of Peekskill Road, at Little Stony Point Park and in Nelsonville on Main Street (Route 301) just east of Peekskill Road. Putnam has cameras in 21 locations, with two more sites scheduled to be added. Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 11, the network issued alerts for 184 vehicles reported stolen, 27 associated with "known burglary crews" and 22 with organized retail thefts, and 17 for wanted suspects and people missing or at risk of harming themselves or others, according to a document provided to the committee by Hess and the police chiefs for Carmel and Kent. The camera near Peekskill Road helped police capture David Peres in the February 2022 armed robbery of a Gulf gas station on Route 9D; he was sentenced in December 2024 to eight years in prison. The cameras are also credited with helping deputies capture Santos Vasquez-Ramirez, a Pawling resident who in June pleaded guilty to killing a cab driver in Southeast. Hess and police in Carmel and Kent say alerts issued when cameras record the plate of a stolen vehicle or cars associated with burglary or retail-theft crews help locate suspects before they commit additional crimes. Officers also use them to investigate crimes when pol...