LAPD officers at the ALPR meeting are, from left, Chief Dino Sgambellone, Cmdr. Chris Ross, and Cpl. Michael Weiss. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
County Manager Anne Laurent makes her introductory remarks at the LAPD town hall on automated license plate readers. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com
Council chambers at the Municipal Building were full Thursday evening during the Los Alamos Police Department town hall on their use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) in the County. Many others attended online. The bottom line appears to be that the ALPRs are here to stay, but there could be changes to the policy governing them at the discretion of the Chief of Police Dino Sgambellone.
County manager Anne Laurent acknowledged that most people were there because they had concerns about the ALPRs being utilized by LAPD and because there is a “widespread Anti-Flock movement happening in many parts of the world right now – including here in our community”.
Laurent said that although ALPR technology has been used by LAPD for many years the County understands that the world of technological capabilities around us has significantly changed at a rapid rate.
“I want to assure you we are paying attention; we are adapting and willing to make changes to make sure the public services here in the County maintain the high standards and high expectations of honest and ethical behaviors that are worthy of the public’s trust,” she said.
Laurent noted that she is a Los Alamos County resident having moved here in 2008. She said she personally longs for return to an existence where she is not “tied or dependent or forced to utilize my phone and apps to to travel or have a camera record of what she is buying from the grocery store or other places”.
“But here we are – together feeling vulnerable and questioning whether we can trust the people who are gathering or accessing our digital footprint,” she said.
Laurent said Thursday’s presentation is only the start of an ongoing dialogue to generate a baseline understanding together of what the technology in-use by LAPD is, what it’s capabilities are, and the policies in place to safeguard against misuse.
The County has now posted a comprehensive source of information on its that includes answers to 200 questions submitted during the “town hall” or “education” session Thursday evening.
The website has divided up the comments and presentations given on Thursday and has added a great deal of information that might have been presented to the community prior to Jan. 27, 2026, when Council voted unanimously Jan. 27, 2026, to approve a 10-year, $6.83 million agreement with Axon Enterprise for police video and digital-evidence systems, including in-car cameras, body cameras and automated license-plate recognition technology. The agenda item for that meeting didn’t refer directly to ALPRs but they were part of the discussion.
Council had also approved a $500,000 FY2026 budget revision for LAPD in December 2025 to purchase body-worn, in-vehicle, evidence and interrogation-room cameras and hosted software services.
When the Axion system came up on the agenda again on June 26, 2026, the Reporter alerted the community to the agenda item and published information from the agenda package: See
https://losalamosreporter.com/2026/06/26/lapd-chief-dino-sgambellone-to-give-presentation-at-tuesdays-council-meeting-on-cameras-and-data-collection-throughout-los-alamos-county/ It appears that the issue of surveillance had begun to take hold throughout the country with more and more concern about how ALPRs could be used.
During discussions with locals, many people mistakenly thought the surveillance involved was only the “cameras” mounted in locations throughout the community. Some remembered a story written by the Reporter about the “speed screens” installed by LAPD in 2020-2021. See: https://losalamosreporter.com/2021/11/15/los-alamos-police-department-takes-steps-to-reduce-injury-accidents/
They later became aware that part of the Axon contract was the 50 ALPRs to be placed in LAPD vehicles.
The revised LAPD Policy 209 on ALPRs went into effect June 1, 2026. That policy, which was enacted in 2020, and revised in June 2026, continues to state that “reasonable suspicion or probable cause” were not required before using ALPRs.
The conversations the Reporter has had with members of the community over the past few weeks have frequently turned to what folks feel is the failure of LAPD to communicate about its plans. It was not an accusation of an attempt to conceal those plans in any way, but rather that even when another brand of surveillance camera hit the news nationally, it took until recently for the information to be disseminated.
Watch the Los Alamos Reporter page for more coverage of the ALPR issue.
LAPD Corporal Michael Weiss makes his presentation on ALPRs at Thursday’s meeting. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
Deputy Los Alamos County Manager Linda Matteson and Public Information Officer Dave Krueger review the questions submitted by the audience and online. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
The audience at Thursday’s ‘education’ session on APLRs. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
County Manager Anne Laurent and Chief of Police Dino Sgambellone at Thursday’s meeting. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com