Espanola, NM Police Pilot Flock Safety to stop crime

Our Take

Notice who's hosting this clip: not KOAT, but Flock Safety itself. That's worth pausing on. When the company selling the cameras is also the one curating the news coverage about them, you're not getting journalism—you're getting a marketing reel with a news anchor's voice stapled on top. Espanola is a small New Mexico city, and small departments are exactly where Flock likes to plant these 'pilot program' flags, because a quiet rollout with little public debate is much easier to expand later than one that invites scrutiny up front.

The pitch is always the same: grainy footage, a chief praising the tech, vague references to stopping crime. What's missing, as usual, is any independent audit of hit rates, false positives, data retention policies, or who else gets access to the plate reads once they're logged. 'Pilot' programs have a way of becoming permanent infrastructure without a second vote, especially when the only public narrative comes pre-packaged by the vendor.

If you live in or near Espanola, or anywhere a city council is quietly weighing a Flock contract, check whether readers are already up on our map, and use our take-action resources to push for real transparency before the cameras go live, not after.