Benson PD Uses Flock License Plate Readers Amid Debate
The short version: KGUN9 reports Benson PD is pressing ahead with Flock ALPRs despite community pushback, the same script playing out in small towns everywhere.
Our Take
Benson is the latest small town where a police department rolls out Flock Safety cameras, hears objections from residents, and keeps rolling anyway. Credit to KGUN9 for actually covering the local pushback instead of just running a press release dressed up as news — that's more scrutiny than most of these deployments get.
This is the pattern across the country: a department announces ALPRs as a tool to fight car theft or find wanted suspects, a handful of residents raise concerns about who else gets tracked, and the cameras go up regardless. What rarely gets explained is who else has access to that data, how long it's retained, or whether it gets shared with federal agencies or out-of-state police. Benson's size doesn't make those questions less urgent — small departments often have even less capacity for oversight than big-city ones.
If you want to see whether Flock has already landed in your own neighborhood, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for a local news crew to show up before pushing back, our take-action page has steps for raising this with your city council before the cameras become permanent fixtures.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KGUN9, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.