San Jose police officer fired for helping domestic violence suspect

Our Take

This is the nightmare scenario privacy advocates keep warning about, and now it has a name, a badge number, and a termination letter. According to KRON 4, a San Jose police officer used his off-duty access to the department's Automated License Plate Reader network to help a family member locate a domestic violence victim. The entire premise of ALPR systems is that they're supposed to protect public safety — instead, one was allegedly turned into a stalking tool by the very person entrusted to use it responsibly.

Departments love to tell the public that ALPR data is tightly controlled, audited, and only accessed for 'legitimate investigative purposes.' Cases like this one puncture that talking point. These systems log the movements of everyone who drives past a camera, store that data for weeks or months, and hand officers a search bar to pull up a person's location history on demand. When that power is misused, the consequences aren't hypothetical — they can put a domestic violence survivor directly back in harm's way. Audits and policies only matter if they're enforced before damage is done, not after a firing makes the news.

We built our camera map because communities deserve to know how much surveillance infrastructure is sitting on their streets, and who controls access to it. If your local police department runs Flock Safety cameras, ask who can query them, how often access is audited, and what happens when someone breaks the rules. Check our take-action page for ways to push your city council toward real accountability before your town becomes the next headline.