{"id":298592,"date":"2026-05-18T20:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T20:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/298592\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T20:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T20:13:08","slug":"austin-leaders-say-license-plate-readers-could-have-helped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/298592\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin leaders say license plate readers could have helped"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 After a series of shootings<\/a> over the weekend in Austin, the topic of surveillance technology was again brought to some of the city\u2019s top leaders.<\/p>\n

Three young people are in custody for at least 12 shootings that injured four people. Officials said the suspects stole multiple vehicles, and the Manor Police Department confirmed one of the stolen vehicles was located in Manor, east of Austin, using automatic license plate reader technology.<\/p>\n

When asked in a Sunday press conference<\/a> if license plate readers in Austin would have helped the scenario, Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis and Mayor Kirk Watson both agreed it would have.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the conversation is ripe to have, could that have helped? Yes, it could have helped,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we talk about Austin being safe and people feeling safe in Austin, we need to make sure that our law enforcement has the tools that they need so that we can keep people safe,\u201d Watson said. \u201cProbably having license plate readers would have been helpful under these circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davis also said she\u2019s open to having conversations surrounding the city\u2019s TRUST Act, an ordinance passed by Austin City Council in April to restrict the use of surveillance technology, according to the Austin American-Statesman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The City of Austin\u00a0terminated its license plate reader program<\/a> last June after community criticism about data being shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 After a series of shootings over the weekend in Austin, the topic of surveillance technology…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1061,132,134,133,5604,1226,223,1225,3621,27],"class_list":["post-298592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-app-public-safety","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-austin-what-you-need-to-know","tag-christine-sanchez","tag-news","tag-public-safety","tag-technology","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}