Tempe discontinues use of Flock cameras: Mayor Corey Woods explains why

Our Take

When a mayor goes on the radio to explain why his city is walking away from Flock Safety cameras, that's news worth paying attention to. KTAR News' interview with Tempe Mayor Corey Woods, conducted by Mike Broomhead, is exactly the kind of accountability moment we like to see: an elected official forced to publicly justify a surveillance rollback instead of quietly letting a contract lapse and hoping nobody notices.

We don't know all the specifics behind Tempe's decision yet, and we're not going to guess at cost, effectiveness, or privacy findings the city may have cited. But the pattern matters more than any single city's story. Flock's pitch to local governments has always been that these cameras are a low-controversy, high-value tool for cops. When a city reverses course and a mayor has to answer for it on air, that pitch starts looking a lot shakier — and it hands ammunition to residents in other towns still fighting to get their own councils to ask hard questions.

If you want to see whether ALPR cameras are already watching your commute, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for your city to have its own Tempe moment, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back before the contract gets signed, not after.