Texas Cops Indicted Over Flock Camera Searches #texas #flocksafety #texasnews

Our Take

Credit to The Barbed Wire for digging into this one. Two Texas police officers now facing indictment for how they used Flock Safety's license plate camera network isn't just a local scandal — it's a preview of what happens everywhere these systems get deployed without real oversight. The part that should bother you most isn't the misuse itself. It's that neither department flagged it internally. The audit trail everyone keeps citing as proof these systems are "accountable" apparently didn't do its one job until someone outside the department started asking questions.

This is the pattern we keep seeing nationwide: agencies sell ALPR networks to city councils and the public on the promise of robust logging, strict access controls, and searches limited to legitimate investigations. Then it turns out the safeguard is mostly theoretical until a reporter, a defense attorney, or a whistleblower forces the issue. Flock's own data shows how often these networks get queried — thousands of searches a month in many jurisdictions — and the honor system is doing a lot of heavy lifting when self-policing is the only check in place.

If you want to know whether your own community is sitting under one of these camera networks, check our map to see what's been documented near you. And if you think your city council should be asking harder questions before renewing a Flock contract, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back.