That little black camera bolted to a pole at the end of your street was supposed to be hunting stolen cars and Amber Alerts. Turns out, in more than a few towns across America, it’s also been quietly helping a cop figure out where his ex is having dinner.
A growing review of news reports and public records by the Institute for Justice has pinned down at least 18 separate cases of police officers allegedly abusing automated license plate reader (ALPR) networks, the Flock cameras and similar systems now blanketing the country, to stalk people they were romantically interested in. We’re talking current partners, exes, and in at least one genuinely unsettling case, a total stranger a cop spotted in public and decided to track down. Most of these incidents have piled up since 2024, and nearly every one of these officers either got criminally charged, resigned, got fired, or some combination of all three.
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“Internal Safeguards” That Rarely Catch Anything
Here’s the kicker: the companies behind these cameras love to tell you they have “internal safeguards” to stop this exact thing. Yet only a handful of the 18 cases were caught by those internal investigations. The rest came to light the old-fashioned way, when a terrified victim walked into a police station and reported being stalked.
The fundamental problem, as IJ attorney Michael Soyfer puts it, is that these systems dump a detailed log of everybody’s movements into the hands of every officer with a login, no warrant required. When there’s no real check on who’s searching what, you get exactly what you’d expect from giving thousands of people a god’s-eye view of every car on the road.
Wisconsin Has a Real Flock Problem
This past March, a Milwaukee officer resigned after allegedly running his romantic partner and one of that partner’s exes through the city’s Flock network nearly 180 times in two months. Read that again: 180 times. The wild part is how he got caught — his victims looked themselves up on HaveIBeenFlocked.com, a site that scrapes publicly released Flock audit data, and found the receipts. Milwaukee PD then yanked most officers’ access to the database entirely.
He wasn’t alone in the Badger State. A Menasha officer got put on leave and charged with misconduct after his ex-girlfriend filed a complaint. Two hours away in Kenosha, a sheriff’s deputy resigned after investigators found he’d been tailing a coworker he was involved with, and the department still handed him severance pay on the way out.
The Stranger Danger Case
The one that should make your skin crawl: earlier this year, a Monroe County, Florida, sheriff’s deputy allegedly used an ALPR system to track and eventually pull over a woman he’d met while working security on a TV set. He didn’t know her. He just decided he wanted to, and the surveillance state handed him the tools to make it happen.
And This Is Almost Certainly an Undercount
The 18 cases below are the ones we know about. Plenty of misconduct never gets detected, plenty gets quietly settled, and officers routinely punch in vague or flat-out fake reasons for their searches to dodge scrutiny. The list also leaves out murkier cases, like the Joplin, Missouri, officer who left his job over unspecified Flock-related policy violations.
If you care about who’s watching your car, it’s worth keeping an eye on how these surveillance stories keep developing and how the tech bolted onto our roads is being used. The Institute for Justice has also spun up the Plate Privacy Project to fight warrantless mass surveillance in court and at the statehouse.
Every Known ALPR Romantic-Stalking Case
- Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, 2021: Officer Michael McSherry pleaded guilty to stalking after using readers to track his estranged wife and other family members.
- Kechi, Kansas, 2023: Lieutenant Victor Heiar pleaded guilty to computer crime and stalking after using Flock cameras to track his estranged wife.
- Sedgwick, Kansas, 2023: Police Chief Lee Nygaard resigned after using Flock cameras to track his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend more than 160 times.
- Costa Mesa, California, 2023: Officer Robert Josett pleaded guilty after using a Flock system to track his mistress and her other romantic interests.
- Riverside County, California, 2024: After being arrested for kidnapping his ex-fiancee, Deputy Alexander Vanny allegedly used the system to track one of her friends; he was later convicted of multiple charges.
- Orange City, Florida, 2024: Officer Jarmarus Brown was arrested and charged in 2025 for allegedly using ALPRs to stalk his girlfriend and her family members.
- Shelby County, Tennessee, 2024: Deputy Thadius Gordon was relieved of duty after allegedly using a database to track his ex-wife.
- Louisville, Kentucky, 2025: Officer Roberto Cedeno was charged with multiple felonies after allegedly using the city’s ALPR system to track an ex-partner.
- Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2025: Officer Josue Ayala resigned after allegedly using the department’s Flock network to track a woman he was dating nearly 180 times.
- Jerome County, Idaho, 2025: Sheriff George Oppedyk used a Flock system to search for his wife’s vehicle hundreds of times and retired in April 2026.
- Kenosha County, Wisconsin, 2025: Deputy Frank McGrath resigned with severance pay after investigators found he used the department’s Flock system to track a coworker.
- Menasha, Wisconsin, 2025: Officer Cristian Morales was placed on leave and charged with misconduct after his ex-girlfriend filed a complaint.
- Braselton, Georgia, 2025: Police Chief Michael Steffman was arrested after allegedly using license plate readers to stalk and harass multiple people.
- Bonner Springs, Kansas, 2025: Detective Kyle Rector allegedly used readers to track his estranged wife and two men he suspected were her new partners.
- Monroe County, Florida, 2026: Deputy Lamar Roman allegedly used an ALPR system to track and pull over a woman he met while working security on a TV set.
- Coffee County, Georgia, 2026: Former Deputy Chris Rozar was charged with multiple offenses after allegedly using the department’s Flock system.
- Niceville, Florida, 2026: Former Officer Coty Hall pleaded no contest after using the department’s Flock system to track another officer.
- Winnebago County, Illinois, 2026: Former Deputy Tyler Bryan was charged with stalking and official misconduct after allegedly using the department’s ALPR system.
The takeaway is grim but simple: these camera networks were sold as a public-safety silver bullet, and the people running them keep proving they can’t be trusted with the keys. For more on the technology creeping into everyday driving, stick with The Auto Wire.
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