El Monte Police Giving Away Ring Video Doorbells For Crime Tips

Our Take

Credit to CBS LA's Matt Yurus for the segment, but let's call this what it is: a taxpayer-funded recruitment drive for Amazon's surveillance ecosystem. Ring doorbells aren't just porch cameras — they're nodes that can be tapped into police requests through the Neighbors app and, increasingly, integrated into broader camera networks that departments use alongside ALPR systems and license plate databases. A "reward" that expands the number of private eyes feeding a public dragnet isn't neutral community policing, it's outsourced surveillance infrastructure.

The pitch sounds harmless: get a free doorbell, help catch a burglar. But every one of these devices installed under a police-branded giveaway normalizes the idea that your front door should be part of a law enforcement network by default, not by informed choice. There's no giveaway for residents who'd rather not have their block wired into a system that can be queried without a warrant in many jurisdictions. Once footage exists, retention policies, data-sharing agreements, and third-party access become the resident's problem to research — not the department's to volunteer upfront.

This is exactly the slow creep DeFlock The USA tracks: license plate readers, doorbell cameras, and private-public data pipelines stacking on top of each other until entire neighborhoods are monitored without anyone voting on it. Check the map to see what's already deployed near you, and visit take action if you want to push back on programs like this before they spread.