A criminal repeat-offender steals a car in Englewood. The stolen vehicle is later identified by police at the Castle Rock Outlets using drone technology. Three police officers drive through the parking lot and blockade the perpetrator as he gets into the driver’s seat of the stolen car. The perp then rams through the three police vehicles and at least one parked car “treating the shopping center like a racetrack,” according to a 23rd Judicial District deputy district attorney.

The high-speed chase lasts for a few more minutes and ends with one officer crashing his police vehicle head-on into the stolen car. Then the perp flees on foot from the stolen car but is captured after a short chase. This happened in January 2022. A few weeks ago, that defendant, Roy Allen Elliot-Casaus, pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle theft, assault on a police officer, and vehicular eluding, and was sentenced to 13 years in prison to be served consecutively with a six-year sentence for an unrelated crime in another county.

Personally, I like cops and don’t like robbers. And I’m a long-time TV viewer of “Chicago PD,” where Sgt. Hank Voight and his squad use surveillance cameras and modern technology to catch criminals. Justice being served and the conclusion of the above story owes its success to the Flock cameras that first identified that stolen vehicle.

The Atlanta-based Flock Safety company’s crime-fighting systems are highly valued by law-enforcement agencies nationwide for solving vehicle thefts, jewelry store robberies, missing persons, kidnappings, human trafficking, etc. There are more than a hundred Flock automated license plate readers at intersections across the Denver metro area that photograph and record details, including GPS location, of every passing vehicle. A “hot list” of “wanted” license plates in Colorado and nationwide is stored in the Flock system. When a vehicle with a “hot list” plate enters an intersection, officers may receive an alert notification within 16 seconds.

Cmdr. Jacob Herrera, head of DPD’s auto theft program, credits Denver’s 12-month pilot program with Flock for dropping auto thefts from more than 12,000 in 2023 to 8,550, with 289 arrests made, 170 vehicles recovered, along with 29 firearms. They’ve even helped in Denver homicide cases. Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly says, “Tools like Flock are force multipliers that allow us to fight crime proactively and effectively.” The Thornton Police Department also praised the system, and Arapahoe County approved a Flock extension and the addition of 17 new cameras.

Guess what? Feckless Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and the left-wing Democrat radicals on the Denver City Council are dumping Flock, rejecting a two-year contract extension. Why? Because of paranoid concerns about mass surveillance, invasion of privacy, and potential targeting of illegal immigrants. About the latter, I think immigrants here illegally ought to be targeted just like anyone else who’s breaking the law.

Anti-police activist Kristen Seidel of the so-called Denver Task Force to Reimagine Policing and Public Safety delivered a petition with 1,336 signatures to Johnston’s office insisting that the city’s Flock camera’s be immediately turned off. Wow, 1,336 ignorant people, what a landslide!!

The left-wing and woke American Civil Liberties Union — whose political agenda excludes property rights — doesn’t want Flock cameras to be used “disproportionally” in low-income areas or communities of color. But the great majority of law-abiding folks in these areas are the ones disproportionally victimized by criminals. On balance, low-income areas and communities of color will benefit from the Flock systems.

A libertarian critic of Flock’s cameras concerned about invasion of privacy, equated Flock’s cameras with Big Brother’s mass surveillance of the populace in George Orwell’s classic, dystopian novel “1984.” But the secret cameras in that totalitarian government’s TV screens were in everyone’s homes! Flock’s cameras are only in public venues where law-abiding citizens have nothing to hide.

The Fourth Amendment’s protection of privacy is not absolute. Yes, crime-fighting surveillance tools have pros, cons, and trade-offs that need to be weighed. For example, the mass search of travelers at airports without “probable cause” is permitted to make it more difficult in the future for terrorists to hijack planes and crash them into places like the Pentagon and World Trade Center or blowing them up in midair. I think that’s a reasonable trade-off.

There is a danger that mass public surveillance by government be carried too far. So, let’s be vigilant about not letting that happen. The anti-Flock paranoia of Denver’s progressive politicians and activists goes way beyond vigilance.

Mike Rosen is a Denver-based American radio personality and political commentator.