A Marietta man accused of repeatedly punching a woman in the face last month in order to steal her cell phone was caught by Marietta Police Wednesday morning with the help of the department’s new license plate reading device.

Officers were unable to locate suspect Landis Coulter until Wednesday morning, when the Marietta police department’s license plate reader, which is in a fixed location, alerted officers to a plate connected to Coulter. Authorities soon thereafter found Coulter and arrested him, according to Officer Chuck McPhilamy, spokesperson for Marietta Police.

“This is the first arrest since (the license plate reader’s) installation a few months ago,” McPhilamy said. He said the department would not reveal the location of the new device, which was donated and installed at no cost by a company beta testing the plate reader in an effort to get businesses and other entities to purchase their technology.

“We’re not monitoring (the camera) – it’s pushing a message to officers if someone passes the license plate reader that has some alert associated with the license plate that would necessitate police intervention,” McPhilamy said, adding that the software allowing the department to receive the license plate data was also provided at no cost.

Read more on the Marietta Daily Journal.