A couple of months after the Los Angeles Police Commission suspended the LAPD’s use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) provided by Flock Safety over privacy and data collection concerns, some Los Angeles residents in the Valley Glen neighborhood are hoping to have more — in addition to the existing ones — on their streets.
Two dozen signs are posted on and around Sunnyslope Avenue in Valley Glen, warning drivers and visitors that they are under 24/7 surveillance.
Live feed from the cameras can be monitored by the residents who paid out of their pockets to install the surveillance cameras.
One of them is Debbie Stopeck who watches the live video on her laptop as the feed comes through from the devices set up in her front yard.
“You can see the cars moving. You can see my gardener’s father right here,” Stopeck said. “It helps me determine if there are people hanging out on that street.”
After a robbery nearby in April 2025, Stopeck and her neighbors pitched in to purchase six cameras from Flock technology, the same company the LAPD is severing ties with. Stopeck said having the cameras cost them over $12,000 per year.
“They give us a very good sense of security,” she said.
Neighbor Dan Levy said if the cameras don’t scare criminals away, the warning signs will remind people they are being recorded.
“If someone’s looking to do a burglary, and they come through here and they see all this up, it’s a deterrent,” Levy said. “Why do it here when I can do it somewhere else where I don’t have this?”
The LAPD said it has no access to any Flock cameras throughout the city, including those in Stopeck’s front yard. However, if a private person’s Flock camera captures images or video showing suspected criminal activity, police said that homeowner can provide them, and police can use them in an investigation as they do with Ring camera or cellphone videos.
“I just send them the screenshot of that license plate or I sent them the live video footage,” Stopeck said.
LAPD data shows since the Flock cameras were installed in Valley Glen in April 2025, five crimes have been reported in the neighborhood. But no arrests have been made in those cases, according to data obtained by NBC4 Investigates.
Despite no fruitful result, Stopeck said she feels the cameras are 5,000% effective in keeping her and her community safe.
“The ideal goal is to have a camera set up like this in every entrance of our neighborhood,” she said.
Meanwhile, a proposal to install license plate-reading cameras on Los Angeles streetlights will face scrutiny Friday as a City Council committee weighed privacy concerns surrounding a three-month pilot program.
The five-member Public Safety Committee is considering an agreement with Axon Enterprise for a no-cost initiative that would place automated license plate readers on city street lights.
Under the proposal, cameras would be clamped to the tops of street lights and draw power from the lights’ electrical connections, according to Ubicquia Inc., a subcontractor that would install the cameras.
The committee is taking up the matter after the City Council voted Oct. 6 to assert jurisdiction over a September decision by the Board of Police Commissioners approving the pilot program.
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