A Salina Police Department license plate camera system that has been the subject of months of local debate and a related constitutional challenge elsewhere in Kansas played a direct role this month in locating a homicide suspect wanted out of Great Bend.

SPD released additional details Saturday about the Sept. 5 arrest of 19-year-old Keegan Ray Martens, who is charged in connection with the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Erin Smith in Great Bend.

According to SPD, Great Bend Police issued an officer-safety alert during the early morning hours of Sept. 5 for a homicide suspect. Salina officers developed information connecting the suspect to people in Salina and used the department's Flock automated license plate reader system to identify an associated vehicle traveling toward Salina from the Barton County area.

Less than an hour after the alert was issued, Salina officers located the vehicle at a Salina gas station and took the suspect into custody, according to SPD.

"Good police work developed the lead. Technology helped officers act on it quickly," the department said in its Saturday statement.

Great Bend officers then traveled to Salina and continued the investigation.

Arrest followed fatal shooting of 17-year-old

As Salina311 previously reported, Great Bend officers were dispatched at approximately 12:30 a.m. Sept. 5 to the 1400 block of Lakin Avenue following a 911 hang-up call.

Officers found 17-year-old Erin Smith dead from an apparent gunshot wound. Investigators identified Martens as a suspect and determined he had left before officers arrived. The Kansas Highway Patrol also used an aircraft during the search. 

Martens was ultimately arrested in Salina and returned to Barton County. He has been charged with second-degree murder and aggravated endangering a child. His bond was set at $250,000 cash or surety with GPS monitoring. The Kansas Attorney General's Office is prosecuting the case. 

A second man, 22-year-old Daylan Kane Sherwood, has also been charged in connection with the case.

The charges are allegations. Both defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.

The same technology has drawn opposition in Salina

The arrest provides a new example of the public-safety argument Salina police have made while defending the city's continued use of Flock cameras.

On June 1, the Salina City Commission voted 4-1 to renew the city's Flock contract for three years. The contract costs $198,000, or $66,000 annually. Commissioner Doug Rempp cast the lone vote against renewal. 

More than a dozen people spoke against the system during the meeting, raising concerns about privacy, the collection and storage of vehicle-location information, potential misuse and the ability of a private company's technology to create a searchable record of where vehicles have traveled. 

Police presented a different side of the technology. SPD reported that since the system was implemented in 2023, Flock had played a role in 108 criminal investigations, 75 arrests, the recovery of 18 stolen vehicles and more than $371,000 in stolen property. 

The Sept. 5 homicide arrest now provides a more recent example involving a suspect being sought by another Kansas law enforcement agency.

What Salina's cameras collect

Flock cameras are automated license plate readers. Rather than simply recording conventional video, the system photographs passing vehicles and makes information searchable by law enforcement.

The system can identify license plates along with characteristics including vehicle make, model, color and other distinguishing features. Flock data in Salina has historically been retained for 30 days unless information is preserved as evidence in a case. 

Salina police have said searches must be connected to legitimate law-enforcement purposes. Searches are logged, case numbers are required, and the department conducts monthly audits. Police have said there have been no reported cases of officers misusing the system in Salina. 

SPD also operates a separate Leonardo/ELSAG automated license plate reader system. Salina311 previously reported the department had 22 fixed Flock cameras, one mobile Flock camera, 12 fixed ELSAG cameras and nine mobile ELSAG units. 

Wichita lawsuit puts constitutional question before a Kansas court

The broader legal question surrounding the technology remains unresolved.

A lawsuit filed in Sedgwick County District Court in late July challenges Wichita's use of Flock cameras under the Kansas Constitution.

Wichita resident Mason Grimmett, represented by the Kansas Justice Institute, argues that the city's nearly 200-camera network permits police to create a searchable history of people's movements without first obtaining a warrant. The lawsuit asks the court to find that Wichita's use of the system violates protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Wichita has said it does not comment on pending litigation. 

The lawsuit is ongoing, and no final ruling has established that Wichita's — or Salina's — use of Flock cameras is unconstitutional. 

The concerns are not entirely theoretical. Cases of law enforcement officers improperly using license plate-reader databases have been documented in Kansas, including officers who used the technology to track current or former romantic partners. 

Salina Police Chief C.J. Wise previously told Salina311 that the department recognizes those concerns. Captain Kyle Tonniges, who administers Salina's Flock system, said searches are audited and that additional spot checks were implemented following the concerns raised at the June City Commission meeting. 

Wise has argued that observing license plates traveling on public streets falls within established principles allowing police to observe what is in public view, while also acknowledging a competing legal argument: that collecting enough individual observations over time to reconstruct someone's pattern of movement could raise a different constitutional question. 

A real-world example on both sides of the debate

The Sept. 5 arrest does not resolve the privacy questions surrounding automated license plate readers or the constitutional arguments now before a Kansas court.

It does, however, provide a specific local example of what Salina police have said the system is intended to do.

In this case, police first developed information connecting a homicide suspect to Salina. Flock was then used to identify an associated vehicle traveling from the area where the homicide occurred toward the city. Officers located that vehicle and made an arrest less than an hour after Great Bend issued its alert.

The same capability that allowed police to rapidly identify the movement of a vehicle connected to a homicide suspect is also at the center of the debate: the technology can create searchable records showing when and where vehicles pass cameras.

For Salina, the question surrounding Flock therefore continues on two tracks — its demonstrated value as an investigative tool and the continuing debate over how a system capable of tracking vehicle movements should be governed, audited and constitutionally limited.