I am not slamming MPD! There are reasons for everything they do and for any information they give out.
With the quality of cameras the gun store has, I do not accept that this is the best picture of the Altima that was captured. Due to the type of product the store carries, it is in their best interest to have top quality surveillance equipment. If the store was broken into, this quality of picture we've been shown is useless! Those cameras are aimed and focused to pick up all identifying marks
on every car that enters or exits that lot. The owners and police, and insurance, want the best information that is available should a burglary ever happen. I think the police cannot find the car.
It would make sense that LE needs to know how Swatperp arrived and left. Could the driver of this Altima have taken the plates off or covered them up? The SP was so careful with the planning details of this murder, it would not surprise me if they did alter the license plates.
Another thought, what looks like a light ot two inside the car, the one on the far right looks like a light on the vanity mirror when you pull the visor down. The SP may have been checking his face mask cover-up.