New surveillance video shows alleged racially charged attack at Mass. gas station, police say

Our Take

This one's worth separating from what we usually cover. A business owner's surveillance camera did exactly what that kind of camera is supposed to do: it recorded an incident on private property and gave police evidence to charge someone accused of a violent, allegedly bias-motivated attack. That's targeted, purpose-built surveillance tied to a specific location and a specific crime — not a statewide dragnet logging every car that drives by.

We bring this up because the contrast matters. Flock Safety's ALPR network isn't a gas station clerk's camera pointed at a register — it's thousands of networked readers logging every plate, every direction, every time, whether you're a suspect or not, then sharing that data across jurisdictions with little public oversight. One is evidence of a crime after the fact. The other is a permanent record of everyone's movement, guilty or not, indefinitely.

If you want to see how far that second kind of surveillance has spread near you, check our camera map, and if you'd rather your town not be part of it, our take-action page has steps for pushing back at the local level. Credit to WCVB Channel 5 Boston for the original reporting.