Source: https://www.law360.com/articles/2491598/to-protect-and-stalk-how-some-police-misuse-plate-readers
Publisher: Law360 (Jack Karp)
Date Published: June 26, 2026
Relevant To: ALPR audit/oversight failures; haveibeenflocked.com vague-search-reason statistics; warrant-requirement policy argument
Verification Status: Verified
Notes: Confirmed via full-text fetch. Comprehensive Law360 analysis on police misuse of ALPR/surveillance systems for personal stalking, with named recent cases (all since March 2026): former Milwaukee officer Josue Ayala pled guilty to 100+ ALPR searches tracking an ex-girlfriend; former Bonner Springs, KS detective Kyle Rector arrested for tracking his wife and suspected romantic partners; Monroe County, FL Deputy Lamar Roman arrested/fired for using state/national databases to track a romantic interest (full account with video now cataloged separately as ID 3596, via 404 Media — Roman met the woman on the set of AppleTV+’s ‘Bad Monkey,’ illegally queried the DAVID DMV database, put her on an ALPR hotlist, and nearly caused a head-on collision chasing her at 70 MPH). Institute for Justice counts at least 16 publicly reported misuse incidents (WI, KS, FL, CA, others); IJ attorney Michael Soyfer (litigating against Norfolk, VA and San Jose, CA over warrantless surveillance) says this is “probably just the tip of the iceberg” since most departments don’t audit at all — Soyfer found Norfolk PD had NEVER looked at its own Flock audit data before his litigation. KEY DATA POINT: haveibeenflocked.com (operator Hendrik van Pelt) tracks Flock audit logs obtained via public records requests; as of June 1, 2026, 13.5% of 184.2 million logged searches had a reason of 3 characters or fewer (e.g. “inv,” “sus”), and nearly 2 million searches had a ONE-character reason. One Norfolk officer entered “la la la la la la” as a search justification dozens of times with zero consequence. Flock’s Chief Legal Officer Dan Haley told Law360 the company has 140,000+ monthly active users and has helped solve 1M+ crimes, calling misuse “a very small number of incidents” surfaced specifically because of Flock’s built-in transparency features. Expert-recommended reforms: judicial warrant requirements for database searches (deters false justifications since warrant applications are made under oath); standardized department use policies; 15-30 day data retention caps absent active investigation; more rigorous audit requirements with detailed search-reason fields; civilian/city-council control rather than police self-governance. Confirms Wisconsin has at least 221 Flock-using departments; ~60 towns/counties nationwide (including Eugene, OR; Flagstaff, AZ; Dane County, WI) have canceled, rejected, or deactivated Flock since early 2025 per DeFlock tracking. Also notes cities like Dayton, OH and Evanston, IL have had residents cover Flock cameras with trash bags. EXTREMELY HIGH VALUE for BPA — the haveibeenflocked.com statistics on vague search justifications are a uniquely strong, quotable data point for any BPA ordinance/audit advocacy, and the warrant-requirement argument (deters perjury) is a strong policy-argument template.