Flock Safety debates are sweeping across Southwest, Southside and Central Virginia as some localities end their contracts with the company or pause use of its technology.
On Thursday night, the Lynchburg City Council voted to initiate a process to end the city’s contract with Flock. The sheriff’s offices in Montgomery, Amherst and Bedford counties announced that they would stop using the technology, too.
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said the pause would give the office time to establish a committee to review current Flock policies and practices. Amherst and Bedford cited “discrepancies” that they want to review with Flock.
Lynchburg’s vote aligns the city with other localities that have called Flock into question.
“We are now joining with them to reconsider because we’ve listened to the concerns from our citizens — concerns that weren’t prevalent at the time when Flock was voted in but now are,” said council member Stephanie Reed. “We’ve heard a loud cry from a large portion of our citizens that have deep concerns about this.”
Earlier this week, local officials in Appomattox, Campbell, Charlotte and Wythe counties and the town of Wytheville announced various moves away from Flock, ranging from terminating contracts to pausing camera use for a period of resident input and education.
The localities join a growing list. Since July, local leaders in Christiansburg, Elkton and Harrisonburg and the counties of Bland, Floyd, Giles, Halifax and Henry have stopped using Flock technology, terminated Flock contracts or decided to let them expire. The Roanoke City Council voted to remove some Flock technology devices, but the city still has active ones.
Flock partners with more than 6,000 law enforcement agencies across the country to provide public safety technology, such as automatic license plate readers and gunshot detectors. Proponents of the tech say it’s a helpful tool to investigate and solve cases, while opponents express concerns about warrantless surveillance, privacy and protection of data.
The flurry of Flock discussions in the region comes after nearby cities Staunton and Charlottesville canceled their contracts with the company in 2025.
Opposition to Flock has been voiced in northern and eastern regions of the commonwealth, too. Last week, Goochland County became the first Richmond-area locality to stop using Flock technology, while the sheriff’s staff there “continue to monitor legal, technological, and policy developments related to ALPR systems,” according to a statement released on Facebook. King William County canceled its Flock contract last month, and the town of Dumfries decided to take a pause from the tech this week.
And a representative for that region, Sen. Glen Sturtevant, R-Chesterfield County, posted on Facebook this week that he’ll introduce legislation in the upcoming General Assembly session to ban Flock cameras.
Flock Safety is a company based in Atlanta, and its technology was explained in presentations provided during work sessions leading up to the Lynchburg City Council’s Thursday vote. Flock cameras are stationed on roadways and capture images of publicly visible characteristics of vehicles, such as license plates, make, model and bumper stickers, when they pass by. The data collected is encrypted and stored in a cloud service called Amazon Web Services GovCloud, and law enforcement officials can search it during investigations, following security protocols. Images are deleted after 21 days in accordance with state law.
Flock Safety has not yet responded to a Thursday request for comment about the pauses and contract terminations.
The discussion comes to Lynchburg
The resolution that Lynchburg City Council approved in a 6-0 vote Thursday, with Vice Mayor Curt Diemer absent, starts a process to end the city’s contract with Flock. The unanimous vote to stop the technology in Lynchburg includes votes from three council members who voted to initiate the Flock contract in 2023 — Reed, Larry Taylor and Sterling Wilder.
That contract covers 54 Flock gunshot detectors and 15 Flock cameras. The cameras have not been in use since Aug. 19 — when the Lynchburg Police Department announced it would stop using the tech while it listened to community feedback — and will remain out of service until the contract ends.
The pause was not due to any identified misuse of the cameras, the police department said in a news release.
In a May presentation to the Lynchburg City Council, Police Chief Ken Edwards said Flock is a valuable public safety tool that has helped the department investigate violent crimes, recover stolen vehicles, locate missing people and apprehend offenders.
“I’ve often said that there’s no amount of technology out there that is worth the expense of public trust, and I’m committed to that and continue to be committed to that,” he told the city council during the presentation.
Three resolutions regarding Flock and ALPR technology — two introduced by council member Marty Misjuns and one introduced by council member Chris Faraldi — were discussed at an Aug. 25 city council meeting and were planned to be voted on during a Sept. 8 meeting. Thursday’s meeting was called by Faraldi, Reed and Taylor to consider a new resolution, separate from the original proposals.
During Thursday’s city council meeting, city staff and council members did not provide a firm date for when the Flock contract would end or when Flock technology would be removed, as directed by the new resolution. After the meeting, Faraldi said that given the contract terms, the latest the technology would be removed is May.
Misjuns said he’d like to see the technology out of the city sooner.
“My expectation of staff on Tuesday is that we have a definitive date on when the equipment will be removed from city rights of way,” he said during the meeting. “And if we don’t have a definitive date because of what we did tonight, then we’ve got a backup plan with another resolution that terminates the license agreement on the spot, with the 30 days notice.”
Further discussion is anticipated Tuesday, regarding Misjuns’ proposed resolution, the timeline of the contract termination and any potential costs associated with ending the contract early.
Striking a balance between public safety and public trust
Many local law enforcement officials’ statements say recent Flock discussions center on weighing public safety with public trust.
What’s the status of these cameras in your community?
If you know of a locality we haven’t listed that is removing them, please let us know at news@cardinalnews.org.
Campbell County Sheriff Whit Clark said he made his decision to cancel the county’s Flock contract after he heard concerns from residents.
“As the constitutionally elected Sheriff of Campbell County, I have a responsibility not only to protect the safety of our citizens, but also to listen when the people we serve raise concerns about their privacy and civil liberties,” Clark said in a Wednesday news release. “While technology can be a valuable tool for law enforcement, maintaining the trust and confidence of our community must remain a priority.”
“I believe this is the best tool I have seen in my 20 years in law enforcement,” Appomattox Sheriff Robert Richardson said in a news release Wednesday. “I also believe the data must be handled appropriately to ensure transparency.”
Wytheville Chief of Police Joel Hash said in a news release Wednesday that license plate readers have served as a “helpful investigative tool for identifying stolen vehicles and resolving cases” but that “public trust and constitutional accountability must always take precedence. In light of emerging nationwide concerns and the decision by multiple law enforcement agencies to pause or end their contracts with Flock Safety, I believe it is in the best interest of our town to suspend our use of this system. Public safety is not just about solving crime; it is about building and maintaining the trust of the citizens who rely on us every day.”
