Months of alleged stalking preceded deadly Sacramento shooting
The short version: ABC10 reports a Sacramento deputy says Flock cameras helped quickly locate a suspect after months of alleged stalking ended in a woman's death.
Our Take
Credit to ABC10 for covering a genuinely tragic case, and no watchdog worth anything will pretend that catching a violent suspect doesn't matter. But notice the pattern: these are the only kinds of stories law enforcement and Flock Safety ever want told. A tragedy happens, a camera network gets credit for a fast arrest, and the story ends there — no mention of the thousands of other plates scanned that week, who had access to that data, or how long it sat in a database before anyone needed it.
Stalking cases like this one usually already involve a known suspect, a documented history, and a name police can run. That's a very different scenario than a blanket network that logs every car on every road, stalker or not, indefinitely. Using one awful outcome to justify expanding automated surveillance of millions of law-abiding drivers skips the actual debate: how this data is stored, who can query it, and what stops it from being misused by the very people sworn to protect us — something that has already happened in other jurisdictions.
We're not dismissing the loss here. We're saying grief shouldn't be the rhetorical shortcut past oversight. If Flock cameras are rolling through your town, check our map to see where, and if you want a say in how this network grows, our take-action page has next steps.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of ABC10, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.