Bland County sheriff ends contract with FLOCK Safety

Our Take

Credit to WFXR News for reporting on something we don't see nearly often enough: a sheriff actually walking away from Flock Safety. Bland County Sheriff Jason Ramsey didn't just quietly let a contract lapse — he ordered the cameras pulled after deciding the vehicle recovery numbers didn't justify the cost, and after weighing the legal risk that comes with running a dragnet of license plate readers on public roads. That's a rare moment of a law enforcement official treating ALPR vendor promises with actual skepticism instead of taking Flock's sales pitch at face value.

This matters because the standard pattern we track is the opposite: departments sign multi-year deals, cameras multiply, and nobody ever circles back to ask whether the technology delivered what was promised or whether it's exposing the county to liability for warrantless tracking of everyone who drives through. Ramsey's reversal is a reminder that these contracts are not set in stone, and that recovery-rate claims and legal justifications deserve real scrutiny before — and after — the cameras go up.

If you want to know whether a similar camera network is watching your own routes, check our map, and if you'd rather push your local sheriff or council toward Bland County's outcome instead of away from it, our take-action page has the tools to start that fight.