Exclusive interview: Mount Pleasant police chief talks Flock, safeguards, and success stories

Our Take

Credit to ABC News 4 for getting Chief Mark Arnold on camera, but let's be clear about what this piece is: a police department telling its own story, with the department picking the framing, the 'safeguards,' and the 'success stories.' That's not journalism holding power accountable — it's a press release with better production values. Nobody watching this interview learns who else can query Mount Pleasant's Flock data, how long plate scans are retained, whether the system is networked into a statewide or national lookup, or what happens when a hit is wrong.

'Safeguards' is doing a lot of work in that headline. Every department with ALPRs says it has policies. Policies aren't audits. Policies aren't public logs of searches. Policies don't stop an officer from running plates for personal reasons, and they don't stop data from being shared with federal agencies without a warrant — something that's happened in other Flock-equipped towns despite similar assurances. A chief telling a reporter 'trust us' isn't a safeguard, it's a talking point.

Mass ALPR networks like Flock aren't just a local tool — they're a nationwide tracking grid built one city council approval at a time, and interviews like this are part of how that approval gets manufactured. If you live near Mount Pleasant or anywhere else, check our camera map to see what's actually watching your street, and use our take-action resources to push your local officials for real transparency instead of a friendly sit-down.