Brittany Kelley
KYLE — Kyle City Council heard a presentation regarding a potential application for the Motor Vehicle Theft Prevention Authority Grant funding program at its March 19 meeting.
This is the third year in a row that the Kyle Police Department will be applying for the grant, said Chief Jeff Barnett.
“The purpose of the discussion is to provide some advanced knowledge of a future and potential agenda item that would be concerning the Motor Vehicle Theft Prevention Authority Grant funding program,” explained Barnett. “In 1991, the state established some funding for local law enforcement agencies and state agencies to help reduce auto theft. That program, over the last 30 years or so, has expanded … to help deter auto theft and catalytic converter theft and other crimes throughout Texas.”
KPD has purchased automated license plate readers with past funds received. More recently, continued Barnett, they have added a drone for the Drone as a First Responder program.
According to the presentation, Kyle’s crime rate was at 10.04 per 1,000 residents in 2024, as compared to Texas’ 20.99 and the nation’s 27.95.
Barnett noted that a few years ago, council directed KPD to include the operations of a Real Time Crime Center (RTC), which became fully operational in the beginning of 2025. The facility has two RTC analysts that monitor incidents as they unfold and provide support to officers, while connecting information cross systems.
He then shared several examples where both RTC analysts and license plate readers were effective. One incident was two months ago, when a skid steer was stolen from the Home Depot parking lot. The technology of license plate readers was able to quickly determine what vehicle was involved and provide that information to officers, who recovered the vehicle.
“Other technology you’ll see [for RTC is] Axon. That’s a platform that lets us bring in all the cameras into one platform. It lets us coordinate our efforts into one system,” said Barnett, adding that the Drive Texas Traffic Cams from the Texas Department of Public Safety, Verkada and Genetec cameras, open-source intelligence and Flock Safety are also used.
The chief discussed concerns that have circulated regarding Flock, stating that it does not have facial recognition, access is restricted and allows for regular audits. Additionally, the data is deleted every last day of the month and it cannot be used for: traffic enforcement, reproductive rights enforcement, immigration enforcement, harassment or intimation, non-law enforcement use or any use based on race, religion, sex or other protected characteristics.
The presentation detailed searches that KPD has made in relation to Flock vehicle searches. The largest section is property offense, followed by warrants, traffic assaultive offense, welfare concern, suspicious activity and drug/narcotic offense.
Flock was used in 53 cases in January 2026, amounting to 20% of all cases, said Barnett.
Beginning the discussion was council member Lauralee Harris, who asked whether there was an agreement with Hill Country MHDD to access records for those with mental health disorders.
“We have partnerships. I don’t know that we have an agreement, but we are part of a B-tech group, which shares behavioral threat analysis across the community. We’re required to have that by law,” Barnett said. “I don’t know that we can access their database … but I know that we have resources, contacts, regular meetings, where we’re sharing concerns.”
In response to a resident’s concern about delayed report statistics online, Barnett stated that the crime statistics are updated on the 15th of each month.
Council member Claudia Zapata posed the question of whether the plates are actually useful. She stated that 93,536 unique plates were read by a license plate reader in February on a daily basis, which amounts to 2,618,708 individuals or license plates per month.
“The total hotlist alerts from February 2026 are 51 warrant alerts, 27 stolen plate alerts, 11 missing persons alerts, three Flock vehicle searches … The hit rate, in comparison, if you think about the fact that we are reading 2,618,608 unique vehicles in a single month, with the actual amount of hits that we’re getting is 0.0019, which is equal to 1.9 of 100,000 return. So, that means 99.998% of all searches of documentation of individuals in the captures of those license plate readers are useless,” said Zapata.
“Although maybe insignificant when you look at the number of license plate reads, I think [they] are still important to keep our community safe because I don’t think that those [crimes happen] one time … but we caught [them] and put charges on [them],” said Barnett. “We’re arresting people that have committed crimes and not messing with the day of the other 98-point-whatever percentage of people whose plates were read.”
Zapata was adamant that Flock does not increase safety, as the Hays County Sheriff’s Office and Hays County commissioners Michelle Cohen and Debbie Ingalsbe stated in a community forum last year.
“What I would rather see us investing in is actual crime prevention and not continuously investing in mass surveillance technology,” emphasized Zapata, adding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a concern. “There’s back doors to be able to receive and obtain the information that our cameras collect … It is up to us as individuals, who also care for the city and care for the people in it, that we really have to take a hard look at this [Master Services Agreement] before we decide to expand and really grow the number of Flock cameras that we have.”
Barnett shared that he received a letter at his request from Garrett Langley, president of Flock Safety, that ensures “they have no back door and no communication with immigration to allow them to obtain data in their system.”
Ultimately, Zapata stated that she would prefer to look into other opportunities, rather than partnering with Flock.
Council member Marc McKinney shared that he has been supportive of these programs from the beginning. He stated that he has shared the same concerns Zapata has, but after having discussions with the chief, feels comfortable moving forward.
“I think we have a duty to keep our people safe and I think that this program goes a long way to accomplish that,” said McKinney.
Agreeing with McKinney was Mayor Yvonne Flores-Cale: “If we can save one life or if we can solve a crime, that, to me, is important … We can find a happy medium, maybe it doesn’t have to be Flock, maybe it could be something else, but I think, in order to keep our city safe, some of these things have to be done.”
The item will come back for a vote at the April 21 meeting, said city manager Bryan Langley.
To listen to the discussion, visit bit.ly/3Pj8WmA.
