University of Minnesota to remove Flock camera after pushback from Cedar-Riverside neighbors

Our Take

Credit to KSTP 5 Eyewitness News for covering a rare win: University of Minnesota Police backing down and pulling a Flock camera after Cedar-Riverside residents spoke up. Cedar-Riverside is a dense, majority-immigrant neighborhood that already gets more than its share of policing attention, so it makes sense that people there were the first to ask hard questions about a camera network quietly logging every car that passes through.

This is exactly the pattern we track at DeFlock USA: a university, city, or county police department installs Flock cameras with little public debate, then locals discover after the fact that their daily movements are being cataloged and shared across a national network of police agencies. The fact that pushback actually worked here is notable — most jurisdictions install first and answer questions never. It's a reminder that these deployments are not inevitable; they're policy choices, and policy choices can be reversed when enough people show up to city council or campus police meetings and ask why.

One camera coming down in Minneapolis doesn't change the thousands still running nationwide, but it's proof the fight is winnable at the local level. Check our map to see what's been installed near you, and if you want to push back like Cedar-Riverside did, our take-action page has the tools to get started.