Another City Just Killed Its Flock Camera Program. Who's Fighting to Bring Them Back?

On Tuesday, September 23, 2026, the Plymouth, Minnesota, City Council voted to discontinue all of its Flock Safety license-plate cameras. The vote was nearly unanimous, with only Mayor Jeffry Wosje dissenting, according to Minnesota Public Radio. A day earlier, on September 22, the Monroe, Ohio, council voted unanimously to end its Flock contract, deactivating 23 cameras, according to Local 12. And on October 2, Hamilton County, Ohio, Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey ended her office's participation, shutting down a 75-camera network that Hoodline reported made the sheriff's office the largest user of Flock technology in the Tri-State. That last one is a sheriff's office, not a city.

We cannot say which local government was the very latest nationwide; the votes are coming too fast. Newsweek's map, published August 28, reported 149 cities pushing back against Flock cameras. So who is fighting to bring them back? Based on the public record, the answer is mostly police and some elected officials, the company itself, and in several places, neighbors who say the cameras made their streets safer.

What Is Happening

Plymouth's council cited data privacy and eroding confidence in the company. MPR reported that a Minnesota Star Tribune investigation found federal agencies accessed Flock data in Minnesota for civil immigration enforcement through law enforcement partnerships, despite a state law limiting use to criminal investigations. MPR also cited a Washington Post report that authorities have accused at least 50 law enforcement officers of misusing Flock camera data, including to stalk women. Plymouth police said they have never shared camera data with federal agencies. The department used its 16 permanent cameras in investigations including drive-by shootings and domestic assaults, MPR reported.

Mayor Wosje said he was weighing "the ability to keep our residents safe and catch the bad guys" against "the bad PR that Flock has."

Who Wants Them Back

Police. In Wylie, Texas, which voted unanimously on August 25 to end its contract for six cameras, Assistant Police Chief Tommy Walters said the cameras helped solve crimes, including a 2026 murder, and warned the decision would "create some challenges," according to Fox 4. In Dallas, where the council rejected a proposal to end funding with only three members in favor, Police Chief Daniel Comeaux called the cameras "an extra tool," per Fox 4. Dallas Police Association president Sean Pease said the cameras increased suspect identification rates by 20 percent in 2026; that is his claim, and we could not independently verify it.

The company. Flock offered payment pauses of 90 days to agencies including Dallas, Addison, New Braunfels and Johnson County, Texas. During the pause, agencies keep camera access and can exit penalty-free if state funding does not return, according to the Texas Tribune. Flock has also announced that, starting January 1, it will shorten its default data retention from 30 days to seven and require agencies to use auditing tools, per Newsweek. The Intercept reported that Flock has spent more than $2 million on state and federal lobbying since early 2025 and gave $240,000 to political groups, including both parties' governors' associations. Flock did not respond to The Intercept's requests for comment. Nothing we found shows the donations were tied to any camera decision.

Residents and officials. In Richmond, California, merchants and safety advocates rallied on March 3, 2026, to push the council to extend the contract and reactivate cameras that had been offline since December 2025, according to a report carried by AOL News. The police chief had deactivated the system after finding a configuration error that allowed unauthorized access by outside agencies, and credits it with 272 arrests since April 2023. In Asheville, North Carolina, some residents of Pisgah View Apartments told WLOS they wanted the cameras left up, before the council voted to end the city's contract for 11 cameras. In Texas, the Tribune reported that some local officials hope Governor Greg Abbott restores state funding after the November 3 election. Johnson County Commissioner Rick Bailey, speaking about the state's funding freeze, said the pause was "because of the fear of making the voters upset."

What Is Getting Less Attention

The Texas story involves the largest numbers of cameras in this account. The Texas Tribune reported that Abbott froze state funding in late August after its investigation found a state agency had committed at least $30 million to more than 3,200 Flock cameras. El Paso removed 150 cameras, the Tribune reported, and the Department of Public Safety operates more than 900 state-funded Flock cameras, which the Tribune said it will keep for now. Wylie's council voted to hold a workshop on a possible new contract if Flock changes its policies, according to Fox 4, so even a "no" can be conditional. In Monroe, voters could bring the cameras back by ballot measure, though not before November, Local 12 reported.

The case for the cameras deserves its due. Hoodline reported that Sheriff McGuffey credited the technology with helping locate a missing girl and an older woman with dementia, and she has said "None of our deputies misused this technology." Her office's stated reason for ending the program was that it would use only tools meeting its standards for privacy, transparency and full local control over sensitive information.

Our Take

This section is opinion.

We oppose Flock-style mass license-plate tracking. In our view, a camera network that logs every driver, not just suspects, and stores that data where outside agencies can reach it, is a step toward the police state conservatives have always warned about.

The pro-camera arguments are serious. Solved murders and found missing people are real. But the burden belongs on the government to show why it needs to watch everyone, and the reports of officer misuse and federal data access, which we attribute to the Star Tribune and the Washington Post, are exactly what limited-government skeptics predicted.

This is also a states-and-localities issue, and it should stay one. These decisions are being made by city councils, sheriffs and, in Texas, a governor, not by Washington, which is how it should be. If cameras ever return, the terms should be set by local voters: warrants for searches, short retention and no federal access.