New Mexico Police Chase Down Guy Who STOLE 10 FLOCK CAMERAS
The short version: A Bernalillo County man's arrest for yanking ten Flock cameras shows both the backlash against ALPR sprawl and how exposed these roadside surveillance boxes really are.
Our Take
Footage via OfficerCaughey lays out the Bernalillo County case: Jevon Martinez allegedly pulled ten Flock Safety cameras out of the ground before investigators tracked him down and arrested him on Sept. 2. We're not in the business of cheering property crime, and anyone doing this is taking on real legal risk — theft and tampering charges are not hypothetical, as this case shows.
But step back from the individual case and the bigger story is the one Flock and its police partners don't like to tell: these poles are cheap, exposed, and bolted to the shoulder of a public road with minimal protection. Ten units gone before anyone noticed is a pretty blunt data point about how thin the security layer is around a network that's supposedly tracking plates for 'public safety.' It also underscores why so many communities are furious about getting blanketed with these cameras without a public vote — frustration has to go somewhere, and sometimes it goes somewhere illegal.
The lawful route is still the better one: show up to council meetings, push for contract transparency, and pressure local governments to actually justify the spend and the surveillance before more poles go up. Check our camera map to see what's already deployed near you, and hit take-action for ways to push back without ending up in cuffs like Martinez.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of OfficerCaughey, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.