- The Tompkins County Sheriff’s Department arrested 36-year-old Jarrod C. Nickerson, a Lansing man, in connection with a series of burglaries targeting storage units, and he was charged with 3rd degree burglary, a Class D felony.
- Nickerson was arrested after security cameras captured footage of a man matching his description in a storage unit with a cut-off lock, and a search warrant on his home recovered several items previously reported stolen, along with a large quantity of additional suspected stolen property valued in the thousands of dollars.
- The recovered goods are believed to be tied to break-ins at about 25 individual storage units in multiple counties, and investigators are actively working to identify the rightful owners of the recovered items, which include household goods, tools, and family heirlooms.
- The investigation has been ongoing since November 3, 2025, and it will take several weeks to catalog and return the stolen items to their original owners, after which Nickerson may face additional charges.
- Nickerson was also arrested last spring for the alleged theft of power tools from construction sites at Cornell University, and his recent arrest was partially attributed to data collected by AI-powered license plate cameras installed around the county.
- The Tompkins County Sheriff’s Department used data collected by the cameras to assist in developing a vehicle description associated with the incidents, and the cameras capture images of every vehicle that passes within their range, analyzing the footage and extracting data on each car’s identifying features into a searchable database.
- The use of the AI-powered license plate cameras has been the subject of criticism from activists, who are alarmed by the volume of data collected and its potential misuse, and some Common Council members have signalled they are open to reconsidering the Ithaca Police Department’s contract with the camera manufacturer, Flock.
- Tompkins County Sheriff Derek Osborne stated that his office drafts all media releases independently and does not receive or solicit any input from Flock or other organizations, despite allegations that the company is trying to influence media coverage by pushing local law enforcement to publicize cases in which the technology is used to solve crime.
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