Records detail Flock-camera investigations of 2 Reynoldsburg officers

Our Take

Credit to WSYX ABC 6 for digging up the records on this one, because this is exactly the kind of story that never makes it into a Flock Safety sales pitch. The company loves to tell city councils that every search is logged and auditable, and in this case that's sort of true — the audit trail is what caught these two officers. But catching misuse after the fact doesn't undo it. Once an officer runs a plate for personal reasons, whatever they learned about that person's movements is already out there, and no internal affairs investigation puts that genie back in the bottle.

What's notable here is how the story ends: both officers resigned before investigators could even sit down with them. No public disciplinary hearing, no detailed accounting of what they were actually looking for or why, just a quiet exit. That's a pattern we've seen in other ALPR abuse cases around the country — departments treat misuse as a personnel matter to be cleaned up internally rather than a public trust issue that deserves full transparency. If a system can be weaponized by officers to stalk exes, harass neighbors, or settle personal grudges, the public has a right to know exactly how that happened, not just that someone quietly resigned.

This is the core problem with networks like Flock: the technology doesn't just watch criminals, it watches everyone, all the time, and the only thing standing between that data and abuse is the judgment of whoever has login credentials. Audits are necessary but not sufficient. If your city runs these cameras, check our camera map to see where, and use our take-action resources to push your local officials for real audit transparency and accountability, not just quiet resignations.