Cops Use Flock Cams to Track, Arrest Black Man Buying Legal Weed in Another State
The short version: Dr. Rashad Richey's Indisputable breaks down how Wisconsin police allegedly used Flock ALPR data to track and arrest a Black man for buying marijuana that was perfectly legal in Michigan.
Our Take
Credit to Dr. Rashad Richey and the Indisputable team for surfacing this case, because it's exactly the scenario privacy advocates have been warning about since Flock cameras started multiplying along state lines. A network built and marketed as a tool for solving violent crime is instead being used to reconstruct someone's entire travel history and criminalize an act that was completely legal where it happened. That's not public safety — that's a dragnet.
The deeper problem is that Flock's camera network doesn't respect jurisdiction the way the law does. Once your plate is logged crossing into a state with different marijuana laws, that data can be shared, queried, and weaponized by agencies back home, regardless of what you actually did there. For Black drivers already facing disproportionate stops and surveillance, this turns routine interstate travel into a liability. No warrant, no reasonable suspicion at the time — just a camera, a database, and a cop deciding after the fact that your lawful trip was worth an arrest.
This is why mapping these cameras matters. If you want to see how dense Flock's coverage is near you, check the map, and if you want to push back on your local council or police department before this kind of tracking becomes routine in your town, our take-action page has the tools to start.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.