Culver City and Carson: federal court denies suppression of two ALPR systems

United States v. Melvin L. Riley and Kenneth Michael Holly, Jr., No. 2:25-cr-00380-VAP (C.D. Cal.), Document 181, Judge Virginia A. Phillips. Culver City's Flock system (52 cameras, 28 intersections, about 4% intersection coverage, about 18M photos a month, 30-day retention) and Carson's Motorola system (85 fixed cameras plus 4 trailers, 31 locations, about 75% of entry and exit points, data "maintained for five years" as of April 2025) were both used.

Five years is Carson's own configured policy, not a Motorola limit. Motorola's own FAQ says data "is held according to the retention policy set forth by you," with no vendor default or ceiling. LASD, which runs Carson's system, has a written policy (MPP 5-09/550.05): 2 years active, then archived, permanently deleted at 5 years. LASD's policy states zero inter-agency agreements with any federal agency for this system.

The court denied suppression, distinguishing Carpenter, Chatrie, and Beautiful Struggle on the same bounded-snapshot reasoning as Schmidt, Church, and Jackson.

How we know: Order read directly (v3.18). Carson retention framing corrected v3.20 and layered v3.24. The order appears to misdate a Weeks citation (1960 for the 1914 case); flagged, not corrected on our authority.