[dylan604]

There are private companies that roll around looking for cars scheduled for repossesion, and will call in their tow trucks if one is found. You'll also see cops do this in some of the "more affordable" motel parking lots, as these tend to attract the types with open warrants.

[jo6gwb]

In NYC they do this with NYC Marshals riding shotgun.

The vehicles are plain white and say scofflaw patrol.

Here's an article about it https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/seen-at-11-on-the-hunt-...

[dylan604]

The art in that article really is unimpressive. No pics of the cameras, no details of the screen used to ID, no pics of anything at all that is interesting and enhances the article. Just shows that even 8 years ago web journalism sucked

[bobthepanda]

CBS is a television station, so I would assume this is a transcript of a TV segment (how most TV stations post online content)

[dylan604]

i'd be shocked if the video segment was any better. however, where's the video segment?

[bobthepanda]

The article is 8 years old.

I feel like multimedia players come and go (unlike the stability of say the <img> element), so it’s entirely probable that the site looked different 8 years ago, and a migration or few later the video content was lost.

[dylan604]

They've probably changed corporate owners in that time as well reducing their independence, switched to a new CMS, etc.

[kevin_thibedeau]

NYPD does this with their marked cars too (standard patrol cars with ALPR rig attached fore and aft). Ostensibly it's the meter maids expediting detection of parking violations but the data obviously has other uses.