Report: Lexington PD ran Flock camera searches for ICE 83 times

Our Take

This is the exact scenario civil liberties advocates have been warning about since Flock cameras started popping up on street corners nationwide: a local police department serving as a pass-through for federal immigration enforcement. Credit to Spectrum News for pulling the records, because without local reporters filing requests like this, the public would have no idea how often these systems get used outside their advertised purpose of "solving local crime."

Flock and local police chiefs love to say their networks are for stolen cars and Amber Alerts, not immigration sweeps. But a database is a database — once it exists and someone has login access, it can be queried for whatever reason an officer types into the search box. Eighty-three searches tied to ICE in one department is not a glitch, it's a pattern, and it raises the obvious question of how many other cities are doing the same thing quietly, with no local reporter digging through the logs.

If you want to know whether a camera near you is feeding this kind of pipeline, check our camera map to see what's already been documented in your area, and visit our take-action page for ways to push your city council for real audit logs and use-policy limits before the next Lexington-style story breaks in your town.