Flock Safety Camera cut down in Havelock
The short version: A Flock camera in Havelock, NC was cut down and stolen, underscoring how these surveillance poles sit unprotected and unaccountable in plain sight.
Our Take
WCTI News 12 reports that someone took a hacksaw—or bolt cutters, or an angle grinder—to a Flock Safety ALPR camera outside a Craven County ABC store, making off with the camera and leaving the solar panel behind. Whatever you think of the method, the incident says something true: these devices are cheap, exposed, and installed with zero community input, often bolted onto a random pole without so much as a sign explaining who's watching, what's stored, or who can access it.
We don't cover this to cheer vandalism. We cover it because it's a symptom. When residents don't know a camera is tracking every car that passes, and have no real channel to object to it, frustration finds its own outlets. Sheriff's offices nationwide keep leaning on Flock's network without public hearings, retention-policy transparency, or audits of who's pulling plate data and why. A severed pole in Havelock is a crude form of feedback, but it's feedback nonetheless.
If you want to know whether a camera like this one is watching your street, check our camera map, and if you'd rather push back through your city council than a pair of bolt cutters, our take-action page has the tools to do it the legal way. Credit to WCTI News 12 for the local reporting.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WCTI News 12, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.