Police Officers Across the U.S. Used Flock Cameras to Track Partners, Exes and Acquaintances, Records Show

A nationwide pattern of police misuse of Flock Safety’s automated license plate readers has led to firings, resignations and criminal charges from Georgia to Wisconsin, Florida, Kentucky, Texas and beyond. Investigators and prosecutors say officers used a tool built to find stolen cars and wanted suspects to look up the movements of people in their personal lives — current and former partners, those partners’ new companions, coworkers, family members and other acquaintances.

The Washington Post, reviewing police and court records, identified at least 50 law-enforcement officers accused, charged or convicted of using license-plate readers for unauthorized purposes. Flock’s system appeared in 46 of those cases. In 26, investigators said the targets were wives, girlfriends, exes, exes’ new partners, or women the officers wanted to meet. The Institute for Justice, which maintains a public database of ALPR abuse, has cataloged dozens of romantic-stalking cases and more than 100 total incidents of ALPR misconduct, errors and non-law-enforcement use. Both groups describe the published totals as undercounts because many departments never audited their logs until journalists or victims asked.

How the searches looked in practice

Documented cases often share the same features: repeated lookups of a small number of plates, false case codes entered to hide the reason, and searches made while off duty.

• In Shively, Kentucky, Officer Asad Zahir was arrested after authorities said he ran 2,048 Flock searches from January to May 2026 on two vehicles registered to his child’s mother. Two hundred forty-one of those searches occurred after she obtained a protection order. He was charged with official misconduct and unlawful computer access. CNN  

• In Sarasota, Florida, Officer Cory Waiters was fired and arrested after tracking an ex-girlfriend’s car at least 335 times over two months. USA TODAY  

• In Lufkin, Texas, Texas Rangers arrested an officer who had tracked seven plates, one more than 3,400 times. The department suspended all Flock use. USA TODAY  

• In Milwaukee, Officer Josue Ayala pleaded guilty after using Flock 124 times on a romantic partner and 55 times on that partner’s ex. The detective assigned to investigate him, Tehrangi Chapman, was later arrested and accused of similar misuse plus secretly installing a GPS device. CNN  

• In Alpharetta, Georgia, patrolman Dustin Bozzo allegedly searched his fellow-officer ex 56 times and then searched another officer whose car often appeared near hers — 29 more times — after their affair ended. He resigned; a criminal investigation continued. WIRED  

• In Greer, South Carolina, Cpl. Kareem Lynch was fired after searching a fellow officer with whom he had a prior relationship and entering false justifications. Officer Sebastian Echeverry was fired for searching multiple residents’ plates and listing “Alcohol Offense Non-DUI” as the reason. Greenville News  

• In Mauldin, South Carolina, Officer Ellie Hammond was fired after 166 searches of a former partner, logged as warrant checks, traffic infractions and welfare checks. The Washington Times  

• In Indianapolis, The Washington Post identified an officer who appeared to search vehicles tied to his wife and two close acquaintances 3,759 times over 10 months — about 12 lookups a day. The department opened investigations after the newspaper asked. The Washington Post  

• In Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, a deputy admitted searching his former fiancée’s plate “several thousand times” over years and was fired. She declined to press charges.

Hall County, Georgia, completed an agency-wide audit Sept. 4 that reviewed 758 searches and flagged 85 as suspicious. Three employees were fired and four resigned, including deputies who ran 10 unauthorized searches for a jail colleague, looked up people they knew, and used the system while off duty. Sheriff Gerald Couch said Flock “failed from the beginning” by not providing audit tools sooner. CBS Atlanta

Not only romantic partners

Other cases involved coworkers, family, and people officers simply wanted to find.

Fayetteville, Georgia, fired three officers for searching plates belonging to themselves, family members and acquaintances. A Chandler, Arizona, officer resigned after using Flock to locate an older relative. A Colleton County, South Carolina, lieutenant was fired after more than 2,700 unauthorized searches involving 14 people, including deputies, friends and former associates. Cherokee County, Georgia, arrested multiple deputies; one, Jerry Shellhouse, had searched a single tag at least 840 times. USA TODAY reported that some of those later arrests happened only after reporters asked agencies to check logs the departments had not reviewed on their own. USA TODAY

Gwinnett County, Georgia, on Sept. 4 announced it had fired and charged three officers, including one previously arrested on stalking and battery counts and two charged with misuse of license plate data. Atlanta News First

Why the abuse was possible

Flock’s network spans tens of thousands of cameras and, the company has said, billions of monthly scans shared across participating agencies. Officers could often search without a warrant, a supervisor’s approval, or a real case number. Many logged dummy reasons — “training,” “test,” “welfare check,” “warrants” — that audits later showed were false.

Flock has since moved to require its Audit Assistance tool and case codes by the end of 2026 and shortened default data retention from 30 days to seven. CEO Garrett Langley has said the company “got this one wrong” on making case codes mandatory earlier. Critics, including the Institute for Justice, argue the underlying problem is warrantless access to a location history of nearly every car that passes a camera. Institute for Justice ALPR abuse database

Dozens of cities and counties have canceled or declined to renew Flock contracts. Other agencies, including Hall County, have kept the cameras but slashed the number of users, required a criminal case number for every search, and opened public transparency portals.

Law enforcement officials who still support the technology say most officers use it to recover stolen vehicles and find suspects, and that the firings prove audits work. Prosecutors in the Milwaukee case put it differently: the documented searches were an abuse of power that erodes public trust, even if they represent a minority of users.

The record now in court files and personnel papers is specific. Officers did not need to follow someone in a squad car. They typed a plate into a national camera network and watched where that person — a partner, an ex, a coworker, a friend of a friend — had been.

Police Used Flock Cameras to Track Exes Nationwide

Dozens of officers nationwide fired or charged after using Flock license plate cameras to track partners, exes, coworkers and acquaintances. Audits reveal thousands of unauthorized searches.

Police Officers Across the U.S. Used Flock Cameras to Track Partners, Exes and Acquaintances, Records Show