'I Saw a Shiny Thing': Cop Says Why He Used License Plate Reader to Stalk Woman He Met on TV Show

Our Take

This is the nightmare scenario every Flock Safety sales pitch insists won't happen: a cop with a badge and a login treating a nationwide camera network like his personal dating app. 404 Media's reporting, built on footage and statements from both the officer and the woman he targeted, shows exactly how thin the "only for serious crimes" promise really is. Lamar Roman didn't need a warrant, a supervisor's sign-off, or even a decent excuse — he just typed a plate into a system built to track everyone, and used it to find and pull over a woman who had done nothing wrong.

Flock and similar vendors love to talk about audit logs and "officer accountability," but audits only matter if someone's actually watching, and misuse only comes to light when a victim fights back or a reporter digs in. For every case like this one that surfaces, there's no way to know how many don't — because the entire system runs on the assumption that the people with access will behave. That assumption just failed in the most predictable way possible: a man with a badge, unsupervised database access, and a personal interest in a specific woman.

Credit to 404 Media for getting both sides on record instead of letting this get buried as a personnel matter. It's a reminder of why we track these cameras block by block — because the infrastructure doesn't care who's logged in. Check our camera map to see what's watching your own neighborhood, and hit take action if you want to push back on it.