Sheriff Grady Judd: "We Would Have Found Him Today."

Our Take

This clip comes straight from Flock Safety's own channel, which tells you most of what you need to know about how to read it. Sheriff Grady Judd's confident "we would have found him today" is a sales pitch dressed up as law enforcement testimony — the kind of line that gets clipped for county commission budget hearings and city council votes on whether to expand camera networks. Credit to Flock for producing a slick video; just don't mistake it for an audit.

What's missing, as always, is the independent data: how often do these systems actually close cases versus how often they just rack up plate scans on people who were never suspects? Confident anecdotes from a sheriff are not the same as a peer-reviewed study, and departments rarely publish the full hit-rate numbers alongside the highlight reel. Meanwhile, every one of those cameras is also logging your neighbor's commute, your pastor's Wednesday errand, and your ex's visits to a clinic — all stored, all searchable, long after the case in question is closed.

If your town is weighing a Flock contract based on testimonials like this one, that's exactly the moment to show up and ask for the actual numbers. Check our map to see if these readers are already logging your plate, and visit take-action for tools to push back before the next budget vote.