Milford residents call for cancellation of Flock camera contracts; Police Chief Mills defends system
The short version: Milford residents are pushing back on Flock ALPR contracts while the police chief insists the cameras are indispensable for solving crime.
Our Take
Credit to WCPO 9 for putting a camera in the room where this fight actually happens: a city council chamber, not a corporate press release. Milford residents showing up to demand cancellation of Flock contracts are doing the unglamorous work of local democracy, and it's exactly how these systems get rolled back when they get rolled back at all.
Chief Mills' defense follows the standard Flock Safety playbook almost word for word: cite crimes solved, imply the cameras are neutral tools, and sidestep the bigger question of what a permanent, networked log of everyone's movements means for a town that never voted on mass surveillance as policy. 'It helped solve a case' is not the same as 'it deserves blanket deployment with no sunset clause, no independent audit, and no public data on false positives.' Milford deserves those answers before any contract renewal, not after.
If you want to see whether Flock or similar ALPR systems are already watching your own commute, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back like Milford residents are doing, our take-action page has the tools to get started.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WCPO 9, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.