Vandals cut down Flock camera in Missouri

Our Take

KSDK News out of Columbia, Missouri is reporting that someone took matters into their own hands and physically removed a Flock Safety camera pole — and now police are investigating it as a crime. Think about that for a second: a private company's surveillance hardware gets planted on a public right-of-way with little community input, and when a resident objects by cutting it down, the resident is the one facing scrutiny, not the company or the city that approved the install.

We're not here to cheerlead property destruction, but incidents like this are a symptom, not the disease. When people feel like the only way to push back against a camera network that tracks every car that passes is to physically remove it, that's a sign the normal channels — public comment periods, city council votes, transparency reports — aren't working or aren't trusted. Flock cameras keep multiplying in small and mid-sized cities precisely because most residents never get a real chance to weigh in before the poles go up.

If you want a legal, lasting way to push back, start by finding out what's actually watching you. Check our camera map to see what's been documented near you, and head to our take-action page for tools to raise this with your local council before it becomes a late-night vandalism story in your town too.