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Taylor police use Flock traffic cameras in sex predator sting leading to 7 arrests

By and David Komer
Published  May 29, 2024 5:33pm EDT
Crime and Public Safety
FOX 2 Detroit

Taylor police, Homeland Security arrest 7 child predator suspects

It’s a system called Flock that tracks vehicles — Taylor has 50 of these high-tech cameras — and can share info with hundreds of others throughout the state and country.

TAYLOR, Mich. (FOX 2) - Seven potential child predators caught by decoys and are now behind bars including a teacher at Wyandotte Roosevelt High School.

It all started with Taylor police teaming up with Homeland Security investigations for an online sting. The officers posed as 14- and 15-year-old kids, chatting with adults looking to meet up — and gathering as much detail as possible.

"We had undercover officers on websites doing what they’re trained to do," said Taylor Lt. Jeff Adamisin. "The decoy would say 'What kind of car are you arriving in so I know when you get here?' (They’d say) 'Okay I’m arriving in a green pickup truck.' So now we're looking for a green pickup truck."

Police talked with the predators and told them where to meet up - that’s when the Flock camera system comes into play.

"This system is locating wanted people, bad people, in society. And it’s giving us another set of eyes," said Adamisin.

The Flock system tracks vehicles. Taylor has 50 of these high-tech cameras — and can share info with hundreds of others throughout the state and country.

"We can type in partial plates or vehicle descriptions," said Adamisin. "Say we know it’s a black pickup truck only, maybe they know it’s a Ford pickup truck that’s black. We can put that search criteria and it will give us images that meets those search criteria that we put in."

The system sorts through — narrowing down vehicles matching the description in real-time. It allowed for police to safely track the predators to a park for the meetup with much less risk.

"We knew this individual was coming from Brighton," said Chief John Blair. "So we could track that vehicle as it headed east on I-96, we were able to track that by looking at the license plate hits. I didn’t have to deploy a six- or eight-man surveillance crew to follow them."

It saved on resources like manpower - kept the officers and the public safe, and helped take seven people looking to meet with young teens off the street.