The City of Hammond is proud to announce “Hammond’s Blue Net”, a string of 33 permanently mounted License Plate Reading (LPR) cameras, are now permanently mounted and fully operating on all Hammond entry and exit points. These 33 permanent locations will be aided by 2 mobile units that are continuously operating in police cars operating at all times on the streets of Hammond.
These LPR cameras will aid Hammond Police officers in criminal investigations involving “imported crime”, crime that comes into our city from surrounding communities then flees back across our city border once the crime has been committed. These cameras also will alert Hammond Police officers, in real time, when a “vehicle of interest” enters our community. “Vehicles of Interest” are those that are stolen, have a person with felony warrants attached to it or even vehicles involved with amber alerts.
These LPR cameras are rugged and engineered for extreme conditions. The camera focuses on a vehicle’s license plate only, logging each and every vehicle that passes below the camera. Once the LPR camera logs the license plate number, it matches this number against various police agency hotlists and notifies the Hammond Police of matches against those lists. The officers are notified in real time, and can act on these hits within a matter of seconds.
Hammond budgeted $500,000, paid to Vigilant Solutions, Inc., for the permanent installation of this system around all entries and exits into the City of Hammond. “The number one priority for any Mayor is to provide a safe community to it’s citizens,” stated Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. “My goal is to make sure that Hammond police officers have all the tools they need to help them accomplish this goal. I believe our embrace of technology, in setting up “Hammond’s Blue Net,” will keep Hammond on the cutting edge of law enforcement. Basically, we want the criminals to know this system is in place and this technology will aid us in their capture.”
Hammond Police Chief John Doughty stated “I want to thank Vigilant Systems, the Hammond City Council and Mayor McDermott for providing my officers with the funding we needed to set up “Hammond’s Blue Net,” another tool we can use to help us maintain the safety of our great city. It is technology like this that keeps my officers one step ahead of the criminals at all times.”