RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Three men have been charged with stealing and vandalizing controversial license plate readers over the weekend in Chicago’s western suburbs.
Anthony Pareigis, 34; Jacob Steichmann, 32; and Thomas Yano, 31, face charges of theft and criminal damage to government property, the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office announced this week.
Around 1 a.m. Sunday, police discovered two Flock Safety cameras had been vandalized and stolen from Lisle and three more had been stolen from an unincorporated area outside the village, the state’s attorney’s office said. About an hour later, Lisle police spotted two men, dressed in all black with masks and gloves, approaching a Flock camera.
One man was holding a ladder and another a drill, according to the state’s attorney’s office. Pareigis, of Downers Grove, was immediately taken into custody while the other man fled on foot.
Lisle police found a gray 2012 Subaru nearby with its windows rolled down, the state’s attorney’s office said. That allowed them to see five Flock cameras in the rear passenger side, along with a collapsible ladder, black latex gloves, a saw and various power tools. Each Flock camera is worth about $2,800.
Steichmann, of Downers Grove, and Yano, of Indian Head Park, were arrested by Downers Grove police about an hour later, the state's attorney's office said.
All three men were charged with two counts of theft to government property between $500 and $10,000 and two counts of criminal damage to property. Those aren’t detainable offenses, so they were released pending trial and are due back in court Aug. 24.
The use of license plate reader cameras, like Flock’s, has become highly controversial.
Last August, an audit conducted by Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias revealed Flock had been sharing information with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, one of the key agencies carrying out the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy.
Flock then put on hold pilot programs with Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations, another arm of the Department of Homeland Security, according to a statement by its founder and CEO Garrett Langley.
Still, communities nationwide continue to cut ties with Flock due to concerns over privacy and government surveillance. Residents across the Chicago suburbs have demanded the same. State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, a Chicago Democrat, recently introduced legislation that aims to put guardrails around the use of automatic license plate readers, setting standards for how long data can be retained and who can access them.
Other elected officials, including DuPage County State’s Attorney Bob Berlin, have argued that these cameras are invaluable to law enforcement.
“License plate readers are not ‘big brother’ surveillance tools,” Berlin wrote Monday. “They are a critical tool used by law enforcement under strict statutory guidelines used to locate specific vehicles suspected of being involved in a crime.
“Anyone caught damaging or stealing an LPR will be met with the full force of the law and, if found guilty, face a significant amount of time behind bars.”
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