Flock Just Replaced a Camera My City Banned and Unplugged, Calling It ‘Broken’
Flock Safety is continuing to disregard whether a city cancels a contract or the police chief disables the company’s cameras.
On Wednesday, Flock Safety replaced an automatic license plate reading camera in Plymouth, MN after the city canceled its contract, the company failed to acknowledge the cancelation, and eventually the Chief of Police had the cameras unplugged.
Joel Feder
A black Chevrolet Suburban was parked on the sidewalk on the westbound side of Rockford Road just west of Highway 494 with its tailgate up and a contractor on a ladder wrenching on a Flock camera. The contractor confirmed to The Drive that he was hired by Flock Safety with a work order to replace the current camera mounted on the pole. That camera being replaced was unplugged under the order of Plymouth Police Chief Eric Fadden.
Joel Feder
The contractor, who refused to provide a name or a company name, said the current camera was being replaced “because it is broken.” The contractor would not show The Drive the work order. The old camera was unplugged. The new replacement camera appears to be physically larger than the camera that was unplugged and it’s replacing.
The contractor got in the black Suburban and made a phone call after refusing further comment on the situation. Within minutes another black Chevrolet Suburban of the same vintage with blacked-out windows arrived quickly in the parking lot, but no one emerged from the SUV.
The Plymouth City Council voted on September 22nd to discontinue the use of and end its contract with Flock Safety’s ALPRs. The vote took place almost three months to the day after four police officers in their squad cars wrongfully ambushed my wife and me after using Flock cameras to track us for days.
Joel Feder
A month after the vote took place the cameras were still up in Plymouth and Flock refused to acknowledge the canceled contract. “After hearing nothing for more than a week, I directed our staff to disconnect the power cords from the cameras in order to be sure that they are not functioning or recording plates,” Chief Fadden told The Drive.
Plymouth isn’t the first city Flock has reinstalled cameras in after its contract was canceled. The ALPR provider went and reinstalled cameras in Dayton, Minnesota after the city took down its cameras.
Chief Fadden told The Drive, “We are having staff head there now and look into it,” when asked if he was aware that Flock Safety was installing a new camera where one had been unplugged. “I hope it’s obvious that we were not aware and have someone headed that way to look into it,” Chief Fadden reiterated.
The Drive reached out to Flock Safety about the developing situation and will update this story when or if a comment is provided.
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