Appomattox County Sheriff Explains Decision to End Flock Contract
The short version: An Appomattox County sheriff publicly walked away from Flock Safety, proof that even law enforcement is questioning whether ALPR dragnets are worth the cost and civil liberties trade-off.
Our Take
Credit to WSET ABC 13's Jaida Simone for getting Appomattox County Sheriff Robert Richardson on camera to explain, in his own words, why he's cutting ties with Flock Safety. We don't have the full transcript, but the headline alone matters: a sitting sheriff choosing to end an ALPR contract is still rare enough to make news, and it's worth paying attention to any time it happens.
Most of these camera networks get sold to county boards and sheriffs as a quiet line item, a 'force multiplier' that nobody outside the department ever votes on directly. When a sheriff reverses course publicly, it's a reminder that these contracts aren't permanent fixtures, they're decisions made by people who answer to voters, and those decisions can be unmade. Whether Richardson's reasoning was about cost, performance, data sharing, or community pushback, the fact that he felt compelled to explain himself on local news says something about the scrutiny these systems are finally getting.
If you want to know whether a Flock camera is watching your commute, check our map, and if you'd rather your county follow Appomattox's lead than renew blindly, our take-action page has steps for raising this at your next board meeting.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WSET ABC 13, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.