· Ohio · Records
Ohio records: more than 30 police agencies ran Flock searches tied to damaged, stolen or covered cameras this summer
More than 30 Ohio police agencies ran Flock network searches over the summer tied to plate-reader cameras that were moved, removed, dismantled, struck, chopped down, rammed with cars or covered with spray paint and bags, the Dayton Daily News reported Oct. 19, 2026, citing search audit records and other documents. The audit logs, obtained from the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, list outside agencies' searches of the sheriff's database and their stated reasons for July and August. Cases the paper describes include a camera damaged at a Springboro park entrance on Aug. 23 and a state-owned camera cut down in Franklin Township two days later. In a Union Township case east of Cincinnati, police identified a suspect, but the felony vandalism and theft charges were dismissed in mid-August. A Flock spokesperson said damaging public safety equipment is illegal and that the company has seen few reports of vandalism and theft relative to the size of its network.
Source
We summarize what the cited reporting says and link it so you can check us. Read our editorial standards; spot an error? See the corrections log.
What you can do
Find out what your own town's cameras collect and who can search them.
Request my town's records →For Flock's Sake is independent and ad-free. If it helped, chip in to keep it running ($5 tip or from $3/month, secure checkout by Stripe).
More news
- Texas man asks a federal appeals court to throw out his robbery conviction over a warrantless Flock search (October 19, 2026)
- Excelsior Springs, Missouri council votes Oct. 19 on ending its Flock contract and covering the cameras (October 19, 2026)
- Akron, Ohio's Flock cameras were searched thousands of times for immigration enforcement by outside agencies, records show (October 19, 2026)