Seems two-thirds of the problems are caused by the police; maybe keep the cameras and get rid of the bad police?
Remember, these are the ones that have made it online; how many tens or hundreds have we not heard about?
The current Institute for Justice page actually lists 33 incidents. (Institute for Justice)
Here they are:
- DeKalb County, Georgia — Sept. 2026: woman wrongly pulled over twice after Flock incorrectly flagged her new car for insurance violations.
- Reidsville, North Carolina — Aug. 2026: man falsely accused of reckless driving; a Wendy’s receipt helped prove he was elsewhere.
- Brookfield, Wisconsin — Aug. 2026: innocent driver stopped at gunpoint over a vehicle that should not have been in the system.
- Auburn, Washington — July 2026: police used Flock to track a shooting suspect and arrested the wrong man.
- Scotts Bluff, Nebraska — June 2026: automobile journalist stopped after police misread the plate on a Range Rover test vehicle.
- Plymouth, Minnesota — June 2026: another auto journalist was tracked for days and detained with his wife after a similar plate misread.
- Cherry Hills, Colorado — Apr. 2026: driver repeatedly stopped because police mistakenly put his plate on a Flock hotlist.
- Volusia County, Florida — Apr. 2026: innocent driver mistaken for a vehicle involved in a fatal crash and jailed for 13 days.
- Sherwood, Arkansas — Feb. 2026: plate misread led police to detain an innocent couple at gunpoint with their infant in the car.
- Boulder County, Colorado — Dec. 2025: woman repeatedly stopped after police mistakenly put her plate on a hotlist.
- San Diego, California — Nov. 2025: wrong red Alfa Romeo identified; innocent occupants arrested and one person jailed for nearly a month.
- Denver, Colorado — Sept. 2025: officer misinterpreted Flock data and accused an innocent woman of thefts.
- Jefferson County, Colorado — Aug. 2025: another driver repeatedly stopped because her plate had been wrongly hotlisted.
- Redmond, Washington — Aug. 2025: Flock data wrongly linked a suspect’s car to his father; police detained the wrong man.
- Cumberland, Rhode Island — Mar. 2025: woman arrested after police used a Flock image to identify the wrong driver.
- Lafayette, Indiana — July 2024: innocent man detained at gunpoint after Flock misread his plate.
- Morristown, Tennessee — June 2024: Flock read an O as a 0; grandparents detained at gunpoint with their 3-year-old granddaughter present.
- North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina — May 2024: innocent teenager detained at gunpoint after vehicle misidentification.
- Toledo, Ohio — Apr. 2024: Flock read a 7 as a 2; innocent driver detained at gunpoint, dog used on him, and jailed for hours.
- York County, South Carolina — Feb. 2024: Innocent motorist detained at gunpoint after Flock misread a plate character and flagged the car as stolen.
- Sedgwick County, Kansas — Oct. 2023: Flock confused temporary and permanent plates; innocent couple detained at gunpoint.
- Detroit, Michigan — Sept. 2023: police misinterpreted ALPR data, detained an innocent woman at gunpoint, placed her autistic child in a police car and impounded her vehicle.
- Houston, Texas — Aug. 2023: HPD misinterpreted a Flock alert and detained two innocent men at gunpoint.
- Española, New Mexico — July 2023: Officers entered incorrect information and detained an innocent teenager at gunpoint.
- Española, New Mexico — July 2023: Flock misread a plate digit and two innocent sisters were detained at gunpoint.
- Fayetteville, North Carolina — July 2023: police misinterpreted ALPR data and detained an innocent woman at gunpoint.
- Jackson Township, Ohio — Mar. 2023: police failed to remove a plate from a hotlist and detained an innocent driver.
- Roseville, California — Jan. 2023: over two years, 71% of 1,427 Flock alerts for stolen or felony-linked vehicles involved incorrectly read plates.
- Charlotte, North Carolina — July 2022: police entered incorrect information into the system, and an innocent woman was arrested.
- Greenville, South Carolina — Feb. 2022: police failed to clear a recovered rental vehicle from a hotlist; two innocent women were detained.
- Atherton, California — Apr. 2021: dirt obscured part of a plate, the ALPR misread it, and police detained the innocent driver at gunpoint.
- Aurora, Colorado — Aug. 2020: ALPR misread a minivan plate; police detained a woman and four children at gunpoint.
- Hercules, California — Nov. 2018: police failed to update a hotlist after a stolen rental was recovered; the driver and his brother were detained at gunpoint. (Institute for Justice)
The pattern is exactly what you said:
Flock cameras and bad policing make a bad combination.
And the source itself says only about one-third of these were pure machine errors; most involved officers entering bad information or misinterpreting the data. (Institute for Justice)
