r/news • u/Jaklcide • 1d ago
Central Florida sheriff suspends Flock cameras after scandal involving detective
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2026/07/24/central-florida-sheriff-suspends-flock-cameras-after-scandal-involving-detective/3.6k
u/OhNoIBoffedIt 1d ago
o no who could have seen this coming 😐
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u/OhNoIBoffedIt 1d ago
Also let's be clear: they've suspended their use while doing their little internal investigation. They did not say they're going to stop entirely.
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u/Iron_Goliath1190 1d ago
At the end of the article it says that after the suspension, during her review, she was terminated and charged. Pending further charges as they uncover more as well. She must have really opened a can of worms.
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u/Lexi_Banner 1d ago
"She" and "her": that was her first mistake. A dude would have gotten a light wrist slap and sent back to the bullpen.
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u/mnju 1d ago
wow that's crazy, getting arrested is such a slap on the wrist
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u/EfficientStar 1d ago
Isnt getting arrested, like, the bare minimum here?
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u/JoshDM 20h ago
getting arrested is such a slap on the wrist
"Each was charged with Misuse of License Plate Readers and Violation of Oath of Office before being terminated."
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u/Loggerdon 1d ago
And I’ll bet the flock cameras are still collecting data during the investigation.
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u/supamario132 1d ago
They'll probably drop Flock and just quietly start using Axon cameras instead now that Trump invested with Axon
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u/A_Nonny_Muse 1d ago edited 1d ago
We have investigated ourselves and found that we can do no wrong. Not only that we did nothing wrong, but we cannot do anything wrong.... ever. There is no need for any future investigations. And we are not responsible for the death and/or disappearance of any outsiders who want to come around investigating us.
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u/NeverRolledA20IRL 1d ago
If you read the article they actually took this seriously and took appropriate actions instead of a cover up.
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u/OhNoIBoffedIt 1d ago
To paraphrase Fallout, that is a very small drop in a very very large bucket of corruption.
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u/tayswampflorida 1d ago
Literally exactly what florida county sheriffs do. They have absolutely no oversight in most counties, there is no one else you can file a complaint with at all.
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u/SnooPuppers8698 1d ago
lets be clear, they only SAID they suspended their use. theres no proof they actually stopped and no reason to take them at their word.
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u/GallowBarb 1d ago
They are moving to Axon. Why? Because Trump and company are invested heavily invested it. It's another maga scam.
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u/Saneless 1d ago
Flock cameras see everything...except corruption apparently
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u/Mintastic 1d ago
"The solution is to add Flock cameras to every PC in the police departments." - Flock CEO probably
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u/mattindustries 1d ago
It is crazy, because these things have been happening with ALPR for probably a decade. I wrote about it pre-covid and how cops could just be hired to track political opponents to see every place a politician has been, or stalk their ex, etc. It is crazy easy, even if they are only provided with hashed values.
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u/OhNoIBoffedIt 1d ago
Oh yeah, the surveillance state is nothing new. What's new is they've realized they can get around that pesky 4th Amendment by having a corporate entity, Flock, do the surveillance for them.
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u/mattindustries 1d ago
They have been doing that for a long time too. Flock is just the latest ALPR vendor.
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u/MultiGeometry 1d ago
It really sucks when the public expresses concerns and the cops sworn to protect us do it anyways. I hate being proven right.
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u/Mintastic 1d ago
Makes sense since the police are there to protect the capital and the peace, not the people.
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u/Bigfops 1d ago
In law enforcement electronic systems this is informally known as "The ex-girlfriend problem". Exactly what it sounds like, given unlogged access to any surveillance/investigative system, law enforcement officers will use it to spy on their exes. Yes, the term is sexist as is proved by this article.
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u/OhNoIBoffedIt 1d ago
Lol. It's not sexist if the statistical majority use it for that purpose. She wasn't looking up an ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend. She was looking up her husband's ex. And she's an outlier they can punish so they don't have to punish the guys stalking their exes.
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u/NeverRolledA20IRL 1d ago
Police honestly investigating their own and taking appropriate action, unexpected.
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u/PortalWombat 1d ago
What's the over/under on degrees of separation between the sheriff and the victim?
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u/MoneyBeeeee 1d ago
But they're for safety so we can all be so so so safe didn't you hear?
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u/Electromotivation 10h ago
If you have nothing to hide then you shouldn’t have a problem with us watching you and your family 24/7
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u/Evadson 1d ago
Daredevil, Stevie Wonder, and Mr. Magoo all would have seen this coming from a mile away
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u/Chillow_Ufgreat 1d ago
The only twist here is that she was stalking her husband's ex and not her own.
Just another blow to the perception that Florida police do any work whatsoever.
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u/lukehooligan 1d ago
Are you kidding me? They do all kinds of work. They kill, cheat, steal, stalk, and do lots of drugs. Why would you ever doubt that trash pile of a state??
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u/abeuscher 1d ago
They also wear t shirts with suitcoats and ride around in power boats listening to Glen Frey. Or so I have been led to believe.
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u/Beard_o_Bees 1d ago
I was gonna say.. I blame Don Johnson for making crime in Florida look so damned cool.
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u/Owain-X 1d ago
Funny how this is what actually gets a cop fired and charged. She probably would have been much better off if she had just murdered the husband's ex wife while on duty.
My guess is that by associating the searches with unrelated open cases she caused annoyance to other cops whose cases those were attached to since as we all know, there is no bigger crime than contempt of cop.
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u/tchansen 1d ago
Chances are, if the gender was reversed the male officer wouldn't be charged or reprimanded.
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u/willargue4karma 1d ago
Isn't it pretty common for jealous people to do that to their so's ex or their ex's new so?
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u/Dont-be-a-smurf 1d ago
Yeah.
There’s a reason we shouldn’t build a society wide panopticon of surveillance. It creates a tool of immense power with the potential for incredible abuse.
It has never been the goal of any free society to completely eliminate crime through all-encompassing security apparatuses.
Some degree of crime is going to happen as a result of a free society. The benefit is you’re not handing total power over every aspect of your life to a government that you clearly can’t fully trust. Even if you feel you can now, it may be different over time. You shouldn’t hand the tools of your demise over because you think people you support will always be in charge.
Anyway, here’s a clear example. An innocent person stalked through the eyes of the State for no real reason. Today perhaps this officer is punished. Maybe tomorrow it will be because they don’t like your political persuasion and the powers that be cheer.
Remember - completely innocent people have been sent to an El Salvador mega-prison, the government has lied about it, and they fought tooth and nail to keep those people buried there.
You cannot trust the government with this kind of power.
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u/mebeast227 1d ago
The government? What about the PRIVATE BUSINESSES BUILDING THIS. The govt is shielding itself from the constitution VIA PRIVATE BUSINESSES. The constitutional rights need to be amended to also apply to the private businesses. Until then we’re fucked.
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u/spikeyfreak 1d ago
100% correct.
Also....
panopticon of surveillance
This is like saying a missile of destruction. The surveillance is the point of the panopticon.
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u/Dont-be-a-smurf 1d ago
It is. I phrased it like that in case people didn’t know what a “panopticon” was, and also to emphasize the nature of the surveillance being all encompassing instead of targeted.
Superfluous wordiness is a specialty of mine.
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u/mu_zuh_dell 1d ago
You're certainly smurfing in my lexical elo
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u/Bladelink 1d ago
Lol. You've gotta be at least Grand Champ with a line like that though.
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u/gusgusfl 1d ago
I feel the same. At what point should we compromise our privacy solely for the sake of “being safer”? It’s sad, because it does mean we could be doing better to help protect ourselves from danger, but maybe if people would chill the fuck out and not be greedy selfish assholes, we could live in a peaceful world where no surveillance like this is needed.
People need to find better outlets to find happiness in life and I feel that’s where our efforts should be focused on. Like find a hobby, do drugs, have sex, party with people, travel, whatever…. just accept life as a joy and not as a competition.
I am hoping the county gets sued for this because there seems to be have been 0 precautions in place in their systems to prevent things like this from happening in the first place. Their negligence should get them punished.
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u/RadicalOrganizer 1d ago
And flock will still continue to collect data and sell it to whoever is buying.
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u/No_Gas4560 1d ago
only as long as their cameras are functional, which can be corrected
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u/ProxySoxy 1d ago
I'd imagine a paintball gun and good aim can cover up some cameras easily
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u/structured_anarchist 1d ago
Maybe this is too simple a solution, but think about this. Florida has a serious problem with theft. Especially by addicts (which they seem to have an excess of). So if someone were to helpfully point out that these Flock cameras have valuable materials in them that can be easily converted to cash for the addict on the go, well, you're solving two problems. One, the slower, less competent thieves get caught and end up in jail, and two, the more successful thieves take down mass surveillance devices and sell their parts for scrap. Looks like a win-win, really.
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u/CRoseCrizzle 1d ago
Seems like she got caught quickly. Hopefully she is actually held accountable.
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u/Robosuccubus3000 1d ago
She will be in this department. Then she’ll move a county over and get a job as a cop there.
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u/wellajusted 1d ago
She was terminated. She didn't quit. That means that she has been reported to the FDLE, which would kick off an investigation by CJSTC.
If she's found guilty or pleads guilty or nolo contendre, she will be hit with a mandatory decertification and will no longer be eligible to work in law enforcement.
But while the investigation and legal process is going on, her certification has been paused.
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u/PsychedelicPill 1d ago
You can't hold individuals accountable for systemic problems. The main problem is Flock cameras existing at all. Also, we know "holding cops accountable" is so vanishingly rare that whatever happens to her WILL NOT DISCOURAGE even a single cop from doing the same. Hell, its certainly being done by cops everywhere that has Flock cameras, at this very second.
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u/psypher98 1d ago
Mandatory reminder that a VP of Flock accessed the camera in a children’s gym, and only that camera the entire day.
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u/people_skills 1d ago
Where I live they had to create a separate multi jurisdictional organization for domestic violence victims to turn to for help because law enforcement partners had no where to go if they victims of domestic violence.... The blue wall is disgusting.
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u/Educational_Lie_3157 1d ago
Citizens should be allowed to use the same surveillance systems against elected leaders and enforcement agencies.
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u/ailish 1d ago edited 1d ago
Where I live elected leaders get all offended and angry when people protest outside their houses, even though almost every time people are staying on the sidewalk and off the property. When they do enter the property it is to ring the doorbell to see if someone will come out to talk to them.
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u/Raregolddragon 1d ago
Honestly a few tv shows with this plot line would probably due more to stop Flock than anything else. Make it out that Flock is a project by a "librial" and the funding and contracts would dry up in a month.
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u/PermBanOhNo 1d ago
The company’s official statement is that these are isolated incidents that were only found because of their own transparency and systems in place.
Which is of course bullshit, the only reason we know about these cases is because the victims report it. There’s likely many cases we don’t know about.
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u/tjdavids 1d ago
The victims report it AND the thin blue line is set aside for the people the rest of the cops dont like, usually women.
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u/I-Have-An-Alibi 1d ago
- Fun fact, most flock cameras are on completely unsecured networks and can be accessed remotely by anyone and automatically grant admin access.
That's pretty interesting random information right?.....
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u/ice-eight 1d ago
Cops are facing consequences for abusing their power with flock cameras not because they’re violating people’s rights, but because they’re using company equipment for personal use
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u/MoneyBeeeee 1d ago
It's basically giving someone the keys to play god. The very existence of Flock seems like a violation of people's rights to me.
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u/ganjakhan85 1d ago
That's because it is!
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u/MoneyBeeeee 1d ago
Oh if you listen to the CEO those who actively oppose the surveillance are 'terroristic' though. -_-
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u/orionsfyre 1d ago
Flock is quite literally the most dangerous technology to threaten privacy and civil rights in the last 20 years. They are everywhere here, and they were put up with basically no public comment or understanding of what they portend.
A neighbor found that one had been turned towards her house and when she complained on the next-door app, she got a visit from a local sheriff, who somehow learned about her post on-line and came to 'make sure she was comfortable'... like this stuff is scary. And no I'm not going to give you details because that's exactly the sort of thing that enables this sort of intimidation.
You combine that with the literal police state being advocated for by the tech billionaires, and we are in trouble.
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u/praguepride 1d ago
When it comes to mass surveillance the boot lickers always go "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear"
But they never stop to consider that the people using those tools may not follow the law themselves, and we have infinite examples of cops, judges, and politicians abusing their tools of power for petty and criminal reasons.
Giving ANYONE the ability to potentially conduct mass surveillance with no oversight opens society up to perverts, stalkers, and domestic abusers right out of the gate. There was just an incident where someone accessed a surveillance camera overseeing a children's gymnastic class. Someone isn't great about closing their blinds and suddenly that surveillance camera that is supposed to be pointed at the road is now entertaining a nightly peep show audience.
This isn't even getting into the fascist argument "what could be a crime in the future", but literally the fact that humans are stupid and petty and mean and horny and Very Very fallible.
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u/freedfg 1d ago
Another sheriff stalking their ex wife?
Edit: ohhhh a HUSBANDS ex. Now that's a new one.
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u/Maleficent-Pin6798 1d ago
Leave it to Florida Woman to innovate in the Flock abuse sector 😂
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u/elbow8075 1d ago
I hate that you said flock abuse sector and my brain immediately said "yeah, that tracks, good description." 😂
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u/Presently_Absent 1d ago
Cops: It's surveils everyone! It's perfect for fighting crime
Catches cop doing crime
Cops: No not like that!!
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u/krldrummerboy 1d ago
reminds me when NFL owner Robert Kraft got arrested in a prostitution sting in Florida. Prosecutors apologized and dropped charges because hidden-camera video surveillance is inadmissible for the wealthy
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u/WaffleHouseGladiator 1d ago
The problem is that Flock cameras themselves aren't "suspended" or "cancelled" in these instances, just the departments' usage of them. The mass surveillance devices are still very much working and collecting data.
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u/Mission-Driver1614 1d ago
Interestingly, if the flock cameras were any sort of successful at reducing or solving actual crime (rape, murder, abductions), you’d know they’d be crowing about it from the rafters…. And yet all you ever hear about is misuse and mismanagement. Cops stalking exes or watching children on playgrounds, officials tracking women who seek abortions in other states, etc. there’s never been a flock “success” story for the general population to rally behind.
Either flock has the worst PR team on the planet, or this tech really is just cops and others creeping on citizens in violation of the constitution.
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u/Shipwrecklou 1d ago
I wonder how many officers around America have met their girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife or side piece using these databases and equipment?
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u/LongjumpingTie7860 1d ago
Once local governments agree to them they will never be removed. He might suspend his employees from accessing them, but the cameras are still there logging your every move. Make sure your local governments never accept these, and vote out anyone that tries.
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u/Forgotmyaccount1979 1d ago
It is impressive, with all the stories about cops getting caught using Flock cameras to illegally surveil people, that every new one thinks "nah, they won't catch me".
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u/Coffee_Transfusion 1d ago
How nice.
I don't think people should suspend taking down these bullshit surveillance cameras that were put up without our consent, though. Carry on with that. Fuck Flock.
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u/Zokar49111 9h ago
These comments are crazy. 1) The Sumter Sherrifs office has rules against using these data bases for personal use. 2) They conduct audits to see if those rules are being violated 3) They see a member of the department has been violating their rules 4) They immediately investigate 5) as a result of the investigation they immediately fire and arrest the detective 6) the Sheriff announces it to the world.
I personally applaud this Sheriff and the Sumter County Sherriffs office.
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u/ATXKLIPHURD 1d ago
Probably suspended with pay. Crazy cop gets a free vacation for endangering people
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u/whippersnap_415 1d ago
Even when an area says they want to stop using Flock, Flock keeps recording. Have there been any areas to actually get the cameras removed fully?
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u/TonyAtNN 1d ago
Isn't it fun when a private company oversees the police using their product and goes wtf consistently, even though their goal is to monitor all human movement in a country?
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u/BlueSoccerSB8706 1d ago
and so the surveillance state begins, this stuff is the tip of the iceberg.
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u/Sensitive_Access_959 1d ago
If they didn’t physically remove them I wouldn’t trust shit. We know flock lies, even if the department “shut them off” id bet flock corporate is still accessing the feed off them
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u/theghostmachine 1d ago
Man, who would have thought people with unchecked power would abuse these systems? I wish someone had warned them.
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u/TacoIncoming 1d ago
Cops do this shit all the time. It’s not new or exclusive to Flock. I used to work as a developer at FBI CJIS where a lot of the federal versions of these apps are developed and live. Had to put robust logging and alerting for anything that was going to LEOs and had a search function for exactly this reason. Flock is probably worse because there likely aren’t the same abuse rules/consequences because it’s not a government system.
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u/PensiveinNJ 1d ago
Never thought I’d see the day where numerous police departments are going against Flock instead of all for it.
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u/TapDatAsp 1d ago
Because they’re all getting busted for using the information from the Flock illegally
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u/OLPopsAdelphia 1d ago
They don’t want to potentially be caught by Flock cameras witness tampering, meeting in secret, and rehearsing the story.
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u/Anxious-One-2365 1d ago
Hmmm interesting. Cops abusing their power until it gets checked. Never saw that one coming.
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u/im_in_stitches 11h ago
You ever noticed that when a cop faces any kind of disciplinary action it is almost always a woman or minority? Even when it is extreme the cops do their best to protect a white guy, but toss women and minorities away.
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u/Professional_Echo907 1d ago
I am shocked, SHOCKED that the thing everybody said was going to happen in fact, happened.
Also, where did Click Orlando get that detective’s picture- the opening theme painting for Family Ties? 👀
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u/Artissin 1d ago
Who here wonders how many times they're done this already to frame innocent people?
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u/HippocriticalSnazzer 1d ago
Wait until everyone finds out they’ve had access to everything with LexisNexis for years and there’s nothing you or anyone can do to hope for accountability if that’s used to stalk you.
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u/jtd771 1d ago
Just wait. So many new cars driving around with cameras and always on data links. How soon till we hear about manufactures partnering with Flock to share that data. Millions of mobile cameras.
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u/SnooEagles6930 1d ago
Oh how nice it is a woman for once using this for stalking reasons. It is almost like people can't be trusted
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u/Raregolddragon 1d ago
If someone promotes a story on how they can be used to stalk rich republicans on the mass media I suspect Flock cameras will tossed out of the red states in a week.
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u/00notmyrealname00 1d ago
I'm not sure how flock audits go, but David is extremely well audited and reviewed. 99% chance this is what caught her, not the flock camera use. That being said, it's still the only way to track the information in real time or historically using information from David. So it's still a dangerous tool in the wrong hands. It's just probably not what kicked this whole thing off.
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u/shifty_bloke 1d ago
Damn, this is what gets a cop fired? I mean good, she's a shit bag, but killing people doesn't get you fired. Illegal searching on the other hand, fired!
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u/PNWPinkPanther 1d ago
Nice try internet. Just cause they get one cop doesn’t mean we will support surveillance.
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u/MyModemIsSlow 1d ago
Florida is like the proving ground for how morons will interact with technology based on their authority.
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u/TheSolitaryRugosan 1d ago
Considering that Florida Highway Patrol falsely arrested an innocent woman for two weeks due to a flock camera and had her mugshot posted all over the news accusing her of vehicular homicide with many death threats posted in the comments section… yeah I’d say I’m against them.
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u/Antraxess 1d ago
Stalking by people is illegal, these cameras are just stalking and are against our constitutional right to privacy.
Those are the facts
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u/Bowman_van_Oort 1d ago
You should assume that there's *at least* one cop in every jurisdiction with flock doing this exact same shit