CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) Richmond’s police chief is apologizing to that community for federal immigration enforcement access through the Flock system that Charlottesville Police has taken action to prevent. RPD Chief Rick Edwards wrote in a Tuesday release, “In June, administrators of the Richmond Police Department’s license plate reader program learned an analyst with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had been granted access to the RPD system and had made queries for immigration enforcement in violation of RPD’s operational standards. The ATF analyst’s access was immediately terminated and, moving forward, no federal agencies will have access to RPD’s license plate reader program.”

“ATF is a valued partner in our efforts to combat violent crime in Richmond. But their analyst should not have been granted access to our system — and absolutely should not have used it for immigration enforcement purposes,” Edwards said.

“I’ve been clear with the public, with city leadership, and within this department: the Richmond Police Department does not enforce federal immigration law, and we do not investigate a person’s immigration status. If ATF had formally requested access for that purpose, I would have denied it.”

Charlottesville Police Chief Mike Kochis in June disconnected the Flock camera system from sources outside the city after citizens and City Councilors expressed concern about reports even then of feds accessing the system for immigration enforcement. He was also specifically concerned about 13 Virginia jurisdictions in the Flock program who have immigration enforcement agreements with DHS, an agreement Charlottesville Police does not have.

RPD Chief Edwards lays out a timeline of what happened in the state capitol beginning with a February 7 request from an ATF analyst for access to the ‘RPD license plate reader program… to “assist our agents and TFOs [Task Force Officers] with investigations in and around Richmond”.’

The chief’s release said, “At that time of their request, the ATF was not actively involved with immigration enforcement. The RPD administrator of the program granted access to the ATF analyst. The RPD administrator of the program has since separated from the department.”

Meanwhile, in Charlottesville, Chief Kochis maintains the Flock system has been key in helping solve many violent crime cases, including being instrumental in investigations of last month’s two Downtown Mall shootings on consecutive weekends. Kochis announced that while the Flock system remains in use, its data is only available to local personnel. The data cannot be accessed by anyone else in the state, and CPD cannot access Flock data elsewhere. At the same time, he announced the discontinued use of the Peregrine data management system over the same concerns that the feds may be able to access the information in immigration enforcement.

H0wever, the ATF access occurred before Kochis locked the system down. CvilleRightNow.com has reached out to CPD asking if they know if Cville Flock data was accessed by ATF, or any federal agency, through this RPD action and whether any of the Charlottesville data has been used in immigration enforcement actions. CPD has not yet responded.

In the Richmond case, ATF Special Agent in Charge Anthony Spotswood said, “We value our partnership with the Richmond Police Department and regret that this situation occurred. Our ATF analyst accessed RPD’s system in support of ATF’s overall mission and although all the queries involved criminal activity, they were not in compliance with RPD’s guidelines. While our investigative analysts support both criminal and immigration-related efforts, the majority of these searches were directly tied to local investigations involving gun trafficking, violent offenders, and fraudulent firearms purchases. In one instance, a potential residency violation may have prompted the use of ‘ICE’ in a search field — but all queries were related to criminal activity, not civil immigration enforcement.”

Click here for Chief Edwards’ entire release.
Click here for Chief Kochis’ announcement last month isolating Cville Flock system and click here for a conversation about his action last month with WINA Morning News’ Jay James.