Flock & ALPR Cameras in La Mesa, California
Volunteers have reported 51 automated license plate readers in and around La Mesa — cameras that log every passing plate with a time and location.
Jurisdiction · by recorded street address
The 51 cameras counted on this page are every reader mapped within about 20 kilometres of La Mesa, so the count crosses municipal lines. By the street address recorded for each one, 13 of them sit inside La Mesa itself.
The rest sit in San Diego (38).
33 of them name an operator in the record: San Diego Police Department (33). The operator is who runs the camera, which is not always the local government.
Source: community-mapped camera data (OpenStreetMap, ODbL), with addresses resolved by Nominatim.
Need this city’s camera data? Custom extracts are free for researchers, journalists and advocates. Ask for it.
Every record for this area on the Docket → · nothing is ever deleted.
- Sep 23 Flock Safety camera newly reported
- Sep 12 Flock Safety camera newly reported
Newly reported by volunteers — cameras may have been up long before someone mapped them.
Where the cameras are in La Mesa
The readers mapped around La Mesa break down as 33 Ubicquia, Inc., 13 Flock Safety, 5 of unrecorded make. Named operators in the reports: San Diego Police Department. The first camera here was reported in Oct 2025; the most recent in Aug 2026.
- College Avenue — 6 readers
- Alvarado Road — 5 readers
- Lake Murray Boulevard — 4 readers
- Montezuma Road — 4 readers
- Fairmount Avenue — 3 readers
- Santo Road — 3 readers
- Amaya Drive — 3 readers
- Camino del Rio North — 2 readers
- Mission Gorge Road — 2 readers
- Zion Avenue — 2 readers
- Jackson Drive — 2 readers
- Navajo Road — 2 readers
+ 11 more streets and roads mapped around La Mesa — all on the live map above.
La Mesa CA PD and the sharing network
Per Flock’s own transparency portal, La Mesa CA PD appears in the sharing network with connections to 128 other agencies.
La Mesa in the San Diego County picture
San Diego County has 1,252 reported cameras county-wide and ranks #781 of 3,222 U.S. counties for cameras per resident. That’s across 3,282,782 residents and 11,651 road miles. By road density that is 0.11 cameras per road mile, in the top 4.1% of counties nationally.
Where contributors recorded what a camera watches, the split here is 33 town, 14 traffic, 1 outdoor. Operators named on the record: San Diego Police Department (33).
What’s watching La Mesa
These aren’t red-light cameras. Automated license plate readers like Flock Safety’s photograph every plate that passes, log the time and place, and store it in a searchable database that’s often shared far beyond La Mesa — here’s where that data goes. Counts cover cameras reported closest to La Mesa (within ~20 km), so nearby towns share the same corridors. Spot one that’s missing? Report it on DeFlock.
The latest around La Mesa
- 3 license plate readers reported removed near La Mesa, CA
- 2 new license plate readers reported around La Mesa, CA
- LA MESA TO ROLL OUT LICENSE PLATE READERS | East County Magazine
- La Mesa approves purchase of controversial license plate reader camera system
What you can do in La Mesa
Ask who approved these cameras, how long plate data is kept, and who it’s shared with. File a public records request, raise it at a council meeting, and see the full playbook on Take Action. Fighting this locally? Join or start a chapter and we’ll amplify you.
Not sure what one looks like? See photographs of installed cameras before you go looking.
Cameras near La Mesa
← All California cameras, counties & cities
Camera reports: the open-source DeFlock project. Place data: GeoNames (CC BY).