Decatur Police Officer Under Investigation Over Flock Camera System | Sept. 16, 2026 | News 19 at 6

Our Take

Credit to WHNT News 19 for digging into this story, even though the department is keeping the details close to the vest. "Possible misuse" of an ALPR system by the very officer entrusted to run it is exactly the failure mode that critics of Flock Safety have been warning about for years: these networks are only as trustworthy as the humans with login credentials, and departments rarely publish real audit logs showing who searched what, when, and why.

This is the recurring pattern with license plate readers — the sales pitch is stolen cars and Amber Alerts, but the actual use case that keeps surfacing in the news is an officer running plates for personal reasons, an ex, a neighbor, a rival, with no crime attached at all. Decatur PD deserves credit if they catch and discipline it, but the bigger question is how many searches like this never get flagged because no one's watching the watchers.

If your town has Flock cameras, you likely have no idea who's pulling your plate history or why. Check our camera map to see what's been deployed near you, and head to our take-action page if you want to push your local council for real audit transparency before the next misuse story breaks in your city.