Aurora has again pushed back the proposed purchase of equipment that would let the Aurora Police Department test the coverage of local cell phone towers, which would help provide additional evidence in cases where cell phone location data is used.
The Aurora City Council voted Tuesday to send the proposed purchase back to a committee after concerns over the equipment’s use and the company it would be bought from were brought up during the meeting’s public comment period by former alderman Rick Lawrence, a frequent speaker at city public meetings. Tuesday’s vote is the latest in a series of delays that the $170,000 purchase, set to be paid from asset forfeiture funds, has seen since it was first proposed in May.
One of Lawrence’s concerns was that the device would be used to surveil residents’ cell phones, in particular by seeing whose cell phones are within a certain area, without needing a warrant. But Aurora Police Det. Darrell Moore told The Beacon-News that the device, called a “drive test scanner,” is not able to do that.
“This has nothing to do with individual cell phones,” Moore said. “It doesn’t have that capability.”
Instead, the scanner is used to map out the range of cell towers in the area of an incident, according to Moore. He said a police officer needs to actually drive around the area with the device in their vehicle to test where it connects to various nearby cell phone towers.
This data can later be used in investigations to verify cell phone location information.
Once a suspect is identified, Moore said, police already have the ability to get a warrant and ask that suspect’s carrier to provide cell phone records showing when calls and texts were made, as well as which tower the cell phone was connected to at the time. The Aurora Police Department also already has a mapping software showing the coverage area of local cell phone towers, he said, so police can use the suspect’s cell phone records to estimate their location at the time of the incident being investigated.
“Then the question is always, ‘how do you verify that coverage area?'” Moore said.
So, the drive test scanner basically tests cell tower coverage by connecting to those towers as if it was a cell phone itself, according to Moore. He said police want to verify the location data to make sure the most accurate information is taken to court and to be able to answer any challenges that may come up.
Aurora Police Lt. Thomas McNamara gave the Aurora City Council on Tuesday a similar description of the device and said it would be used two or three times per week. While the department can ask the FBI to use one of theirs, McNamara said, Aurora police want to be able to grab a snapshot of cell tower coverage at around the time of the crime, instead of months down the road, since changing conditions such as falling leaves can impact cell tower coverage.
Ald. Keith Larson, at-large, said at the meeting that he looked into the technology because of surveillance concerns and found it was something that cell phone carriers themselves use to map out signal strength, something McNamara also said earlier in the meeting.
But Larson said he did have a moral concern over the company set to sell the drive test scanner to Aurora. Earlier in the meeting during public comment, Lawrence also voiced concerns over the city buying the equipment from the company.
Aurora is considering buying the drive test scanner along with associated software, training and support from Five Eight Group. That company was founded by Michael Pezzelle, who spent 15 years at the police department in Mesa, Arizona, and worked on task forces with both the FBI and U.S. Marshals, according to its website.
A report by The Marshall Project, published in partnership with The Arizona Republic and USA Today Network, said that Pezzelle was involved in shootings that wounded two people and killed five, including a teenage girl. That report from 2021 looked into the U.S. Marshals Service acting like local police but with more violence and less accountability, and it used Pezzelle as an example, noting at the time that Pezzelle had faced no public consequences for the shootings.
“That’s who you are doing business with,” Lawrence said during the Tuesday meeting’s public comment period. “You’ve known it. You’ve seen the documents. We’ve sent you the documents.”
Pezzelle did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Aurora Director of Purchasing Jolene Coulter told aldermen at the meeting that the city requested proposals for this purchase and evaluated the companies that responded based on experience, references and capabilities. However, that’s as far as staff members go when exploring companies, she said.
“We don’t go researching anybody’s histories, backgrounds or anything like that,” Coulter said.
If the Aurora City Council wanted to choose another company that responded, she said, that would need to be discussed with the law department. Five Eight Group’s bid came in $25,000 under other responses, she said.
The purchase was originally on the Tuesday meeting’s consent agenda, which is typically reserved for routine or non-controversial items that are all passed with one vote and often without discussion. However, during the meeting, it was set aside for individual consideration by Ald. Daniel Barreiro, 1st Ward.
Ald. Carl Franco, 5th Ward, said the drive test scanner was a good tool but moved to send it back to the Aurora City Council’s Finance Committee to “look at this a little bit closer” given the allegations. Other aldermen agreed, and they voted 11-1 to move it back to that committee.
Voting against was Ald. Ted Mesiacos, 3rd Ward.
The purchase of the drive test scanner from Five Eight Group was first proposed in May but was delayed so it could be put out to bid. From those that responded to the bid, Five Eight Group was selected as the lowest responsible bidder and, again, the purchase was proposed to the Finance Committee at a meeting in late September.
After passing the Finance Committee for the second time, the proposed purchase did not immediately move to the next stop in the approval process, the Committee of the Whole. Instead, it appeared on the meeting’s agenda two weeks after when it would typically have gone before that committee.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
