ATF Access to RPD
License Plate Readers Terminated
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,”
said RPD Chief Rick Edwards. “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.”
Facts
and details:
- The ATF analyst requested access to the RPD license
plate reader program on February 7, 2025, to “assist our agents and TFOs
[Task Force Officers] with investigations in and around Richmond.”
- 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.
- In March 2025, the mission of the ATF changed to
include immigration enforcement.
- In early March, four detainees from an ICE detention
facility in Farmville, Virginia escaped. In the effort to assist the
investigation, the ATF analyst made numerous inquiries to RPD’s license
plate reader program in an effort to apprehend the escapees.
- Overall, the ATF analyst queried 49 unique license plates
receiving over 400 results to those inquiries. Over a quarter of the
results received related to the incident in Farmville.
- The cases involved in the ATF analyst’s queries were a
mixture of a) cases that the ATF traditionally investigates with RPD and
other partners, e.g. firearms offenses and/or violent crime, regardless of
a subject’s immigration status (35 of the 49 unique license plates) and b)
cases that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) pursues regarding
immigration enforcement (14 of the 49 unique license plates).
According to the ATF, all of those cases in the second group involved
individuals that had committed a crime or had a criminal background.
- The analyst did not include the name of the state for a
license plate query which produced a result from a different state for the
same license plate numbers and letters. According to the ATF, all queries
made using the system were for investigations in the state of Virginia.
Pursuant to the new Virginia law taking effect on July 1, 2025, other
states no longer have connections to Virginia license plate information.
- On June 11, the new RPD administrator received an alert
from Flock Safety, the vendor of the license plate readers, that two
searches from the ATF analyst inadvertently accessed Illinois vehicle data
with “ICE” in the query field which is a violation of Illinois law.
- Within five minutes of the new RPD administrator
recognizing the ATF analyst had access to the RPD system and was using it
in violation to RPD guidelines, the administrator terminated the ATF
analyst’s access to the system.
- An immediate audit was conducted to ensure no other
federal partner or other user outside of RPD personnel had access to the
license plate reader program. No other user was found to have access.
- The new administrator began an internal investigation
on how and when access was granted to the ATF analyst by the previous,
departed manager.
- Last Wednesday, RPD received a media request to discuss
“a set of Flock license plate searches the Richmond PD ran from around
March 31- April 9, 2025. These searches show ‘ICE’ in the Flock Safety
audit log Reason field.” Upon receiving this request, a more comprehensive
investigation was conducted by RPD leadership.
- ATF officials were invited to Richmond Police
Headquarters to discuss the matter. Yesterday, the ATF officials and the
ATF analyst met with Chief Edwards and senior command staff. ATF agreed to
provide more data on the searches they conducted.
- ATF states that no apprehensions occurred solely off
the information obtained by the ATF analyst using the RPD license plate
reader technology.
“We
value our partnership with the Richmond Police Department and regret that this
situation occurred,” said ATF Special Agent in Charge Anthony Spotswood.
“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.”
“It
is frustrating this occurred. However, I appreciate ATF’s willingness to
acknowledge what happened and clarify the nature of the searches,” said
Chief Edwards. “We remain committed to working with our federal partners on
the investigation and prosecution of violent crime. But moving forward, no
federal agencies will have access to our license plate reader program. This
tool is vital to solving serious crimes in our city, and we will ensure it is
used lawfully, responsibly, and in alignment with Richmond’s values.”
