IL Cop Shared His License Plate Reader Login, DEA Agent Used It In Immigration Searches

PALOS HEIGHTS, IL — A bombshell report has revealed that a federal U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent is accused of using a Palos Heights police officer’s password to perform unauthorized searches in the Flock database, according to the investigative publication Unraveled Press.

During the month of January, public records obtained by Unraveled show that a DEA agent searched the Flock database 24 times with Palos Heights Task Force Officer Todd Hutchinson’s password using the search term “immigration violation” on Jan. 27 and Jan. 28.

Such uses of license plate reader data for immigration enforcement purposes are prohibited under Illinois state law.

Hutchinson is a task force officer for the DEA, assisting federal agents in narcotics cases and other criminal investigations, a Palos Heights police spokesman said.

According to the investigative report, Hutchinson was the only member of the task force team that had access to the Flock Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) system that maintains license plate information collected by thousands of the plate reading cameras nationwide.

The cameras capture an image of a vehicle’s license plate and compare the plate number against databases containing vehicles of interest. Local officers are alerted when the system captures the license plate of a vehicle of interest.

The Flock cameras are touted as a crime-fighting tool that helps law enforcement solve crimes, but critics decry the systems for their potential misuses for surveilling private citizens, instead of tracking stolen vehicles or vehicles tied to crimes. Palos Heights has nine Flock cameras currently in operation on city roadways.

Palos Heights police ranking officers first became aware of the breach involving Hutchinson’s Flock login in May, when contacted by another independent tech publication, 404media, about the 24 searches in January tied to Hutchinson’s login, using the search phrase “immigration violation." 404media had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all Flock ALPR searches using such terms immigration, HSI (Homeland Security Investigations), ICE, etc.

Screenshots of texts in the Unraveled report also show a conversation on May 21 between Hutchinson, using a meme of Chandler Bing from “Friends” staring wistfully out a window, responding to the unnamed DEA agent’s request for the new password, “Sorry man, the keys had been taken away.” The exchange showed the two joking about access being revoked, according to Unraveled, and Hutchinson reportedly told his superiors that it was "common" for him to allow others in his group to use his login for what he believed were narcotics-related investigations.

Palos Heights Deputy Chief John Parnitzke told Patch that officials learned that Hutchinson had let a DEA agent use his login to access the Flock system, the task force officer immediately changed his password.

“Outside of [Task Force Officer] Hutchinson’s actions, this incident has brought to light the need to review our own protocols of [License Plate Reader] use,” Parnitzke said in a department memo obtained by Unraveled.

Since then, according to officials, Palos Heights police have tightened LPR security to ensure it’s being used in compliance with state legislation. Parnitzke said the national look-up feature allowing out-of-state police agencies to search Illinois Flock databases for possible immigration enforcement was turned off.

The police department also initiated 2-party authentication, and settings are now adjusted Flock searches within Illinois.

“When you are part of a task force, you trust your partners,” Parnitzke said. “TFO Hutchinson is one of our greatest officers with no blemishes on his career. We addressed it and moved forward.”

As for the message it sends to Palos Heights’ sizable immigrant community, particularly Arab and Palestinian residents?

“It’s important to note that none of our officers have ever been part of an immigration investigation, nor an investigation to obtain healthcare information,” Parnitzke said. “It’s not part of a larger pattern. It happened once, and we took care of it, unfortunately it casts us in an unpleasant light.”

Mayor Bob Straz told Patch that he doesn’t expect the revelations made in the Unraveled and 404Media stories to be addressed at next week’s city council meeting on Aug. 19.

“It’s a personnel matter addressed internally by the police department,” Straz told Patch. “It was against policy, and he’s been reprimanded and retrained. It’s not going to happen again. It was a one-off.”

Other suburban police departments have faced scrutiny after federal or out-of-state law enforcement agencies have accessed local license plate reader data. In June, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said ALPR data from the Mount Prospect Police Department was illegally shared with law enforcement in Texas, a move that the department said "does not align with the department's values and is a clear violation of Illinois state law."

In that case, Texas police had reportedly performed a nationwide search of more than 83,000 ALPR cameras to locate a woman they said had a self-administered abortion.

"License plate readers can serve as an important tool for law enforcement, but these cameras must be regulated so they aren’t abused for surveillance, tracking the data of innocent people or criminalizing lawful behavior," Giannoulias said at the time.