Flock cameras help VBPD in arrest of shooting suspect

Our Take

Credit to WAVY TV 10 for covering this story, because it's exactly the kind of local news clip that Flock Safety loves to see spread. A shooting suspect gets arrested, police point to the camera network, and the headline writes itself: "Flock cameras help solve crime." What rarely makes the broadcast is the full picture — how many plates were scanned, how many innocent drivers' movements were logged, and how long that data sits in a database before anyone looks at it again.

We're not disputing that ALPR hits can help close individual cases. But law enforcement success stories are also the primary marketing engine for expanding these systems into every neighborhood, often with little public debate about retention policies, access logs, or who else — federal agencies, data brokers, out-of-state police — can query that same footage. One arrest doesn't answer the bigger questions: is Virginia Beck PD auditing misuse, is the city tracking false positives, and did residents actually get a say before these poles went up?

If you live in Virginia Beach or anywhere else, it's worth finding out whether your daily commute is already being logged. Check our camera map to see what's nearby, and if you want to push back on unchecked expansion, our take-action page has concrete steps for raising these questions with your local council.