Flock Safety talks to KXAN: Its cameras used to catch shooting suspects
The short version: KXAN lets Flock's own spokesman tout a shooting arrest as proof its ALPR network works, without asking who else's plates got scanned along the way.
Our Take
Credit to KXAN for covering a real local story, but this segment is basically a Flock Safety press hit dressed up as news: the company's chief communications officer, Josh Thomas, gets to frame the Austin-to-Manor shooting case as a clean win for automated plate readers, with zero pushback on how many innocent drivers' plates were logged, stored, and cross-referenced to get there. That's the pattern with almost every "ALPR caught a bad guy" story — a dramatic arrest narrative stands in for any real accounting of the dragnet that made it possible.
One solved case tells you nothing about the thousands of scans run on commuters, churchgoers, and protesters who had nothing to do with any crime. Flock's own transparency portals show just how many queries get logged against ordinary people's plates, and police departments rarely explain their audit policies in public unless a reporter pushes. KXAN didn't push.
If you want to know whether Manor, Austin, or your own town is wired into this network, check our camera map, and if you think your city council should be asking harder questions before renewing a Flock contract, see take action for ways to get involved.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KXAN, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.