Michael-Paul Hart, Indy City-Co. Councilor Joins!

Nigel (0:00)

Hammer and Nigel.

Jason Hammer (0:01)

Do you believe these characters?

Nigel (0:02)

They're weird of us. So let's rock it!

My name is Nigel. Jason Hammer right over there with a very special guest in studio.

Jason Hammer (0:12)

When you have a Republican on the City-County Council, it's almost like you've got a unicorn in studio. It's almost like Bigfoot, a Sasquatch, has walked in.

Nigel (0:20)

He's glowing.

Jason Hammer (0:21)

They do exist. Michael-Paul Hart, member of your City-County Council.

One of the few that did not vote to raise your taxes 400% with the Wheel Tax. How are you?

Michael-Paul Hart (0:33)

Fantastic. Love the introduction.

Jason Hammer (0:36)

All right. So now that we got the pleasantries out of the way, let's talk flock cameras. Oh, when I say the word flock, like before I even get the OCK out of the word, there are people on the YouTube chat that want to just barge through the radio and throw hands.

Nigel (0:52)

Flock me?

Jason Hammer (0:53)

Flock you!

It's one of those conversation starters right now in Indiana. Flock cameras, data centers. We joke about this. Class basketball and does Pete Rose belong in the Hall of Fame? You want to strike up a conversation in a barbershop, you bring up one of these topics right there. I know the council, specifically the president, Maggie Lewis, put out a statement on flock cameras. What's going on?

Michael-Paul Hart (1:19)

Yeah, you know, we've had a lot of misuse by the IMPD in recent days. That's been really going through the news.

Jason Hammer (1:27)

And that's a problem.

Michael-Paul Hart (1:28)

It's a massive problem. And it's a tool. And I've been in community meetings. I've talked to the chief of police about this.

But yeah, I mean, there's been misuse of the tool. And that's where we've got to start making the corrections. But there's also the conversation happening on both sides. I mean, this is pretty interesting because on the far left, there's people against it, and on the right, there's people against having these cameras, just from a privacy perspective and a search-and-seizure perspective. That's been the other thing that comes up a lot. And on the other hand, it helps solve crimes, right? There was a hit-and-run that happened the other day where the person was found because of that type of technology. So it's a really interesting position to be in when we want to solve crime here in Indianapolis, but we also want to protect our privacy. That's where the conversation is really starting to go.

Jason Hammer (2:18)

And I know you guys have your work cut out for you because I feel like nobody is going to change their mind. This is almost like the abortion debate. No matter what you say, people have their minds made up. They're not going to change.

When we talk about it on this show, counselor, the argument that I hear, well, they may have found this hit-and-run suspect, but what did they do before flock cameras? We were finding hit-and-run people before flock cameras. They're making police lazy. When you hear that type of argument, what do you think?

Michael-Paul Hart (2:50)

If we were, I don't think we were finding him as efficiently. I do think it does help with that. And so I did a ride along.

It was six months ago. Maybe it was two months ago at this point. And that was one of the things that I actually personally asked to see when I was in the car, because I want to see, what do you see when you're using this tool as an officer? And so he pulled it up on his laptop inside of his car and types in a code or a number. And it's somebody he was looking for that had a warrant out for him. And so he would say, well, when I'm out, one thing I'll do is when I've got the time to start trying to track down these felons, I know and I'll go look for their vehicles, and this is how I'll do it. So he types the number in, and all I could see was the back of the vehicle and the license plate. And I said, well, can you see the person? Can you see like their face, who they are? He said, absolutely not. Now you could also see on, it was like a heat map and you could see like pinpoints where that vehicle had been over a period of time. And that is what it looked like. And that was, to me, at least one set of it is, I think an education piece is massive. I mean, they have never come, IMPD, FLOC have never come to our public safety committee and actually displayed that information to the public and to the council. So that's step one that I think has to happen to at least show what's being shown on this technology.