What happened to Flock cameras in Plymouth, Minnesota?
Plymouth, Minnesota, voted to end its Flock Safety contract on September 22, 2026. The council voted to stop using all of Plymouth's Flock cameras. Mayor Jeff Wosje cast the only no vote, CBS News Minnesota reported. MPR News reported that Plymouth had 16 permanent Flock cameras.
Flock's cameras are automated license plate readers. They use AI to read plates and identify vehicle details such as make, model and visible accessories, MPR News reported. Plymouth first approved the technology in 2023, and Flock is one of the largest vendors of the technology.
The city moved quickly on paper. Police suspended Plymouth's Flock accounts the next day. Chief Eric Fadden told The Drive that the city notified Flock of the council's decision. Plymouth followed with a formal cancellation letter by mail and email after consulting its city attorney.
The reply did not come. Fadden said the city heard nothing from Flock's corporate or legal teams, apart from contact with a local representative. After more than a week, he took a step that is unusual for a police chief. “After hearing nothing for more than a week, I directed our staff to disconnect the power cords,” Fadden said.
That stopped the cameras from recording, but it did not remove them. The hardware stayed on its poles, and the city kept asking Flock for a removal date. More than a month after the vote, The Verge reported on November 1 that the cameras were still mounted but unpowered. Flock told The Verge it respects the city's decision and is working with Plymouth to remove the equipment.
Fadden's account matters because it describes a gap between cancellation and decommissioning. A contract can end in a council vote. The physical network can remain in place, owned by the vendor, until the vendor collects it.
The vote also followed months of scrutiny over who could access Plymouth's camera data. Public trust, not just contract terms, was on the council's agenda.
Why did Dayton's cameras come back online?
Dayton, Minnesota, is about 20 miles from Plymouth, and its dispute followed a different path. Dayton canceled its Flock contract in August 2026, according to The Drive. The city then told Flock that its camera program was on hold.
On September 17, Dayton police learned that Flock had issued a maintenance work order. City staff told Flock the next day that no work orders were to be completed. The account comes from a community update on Dayton's official website. The city said a resident later alerted officials to a reinstalled camera.
Two cameras were reinstalled anyway. Dayton's update said: “Unfortunately, the City's direction was not followed, and the camera was placed back into service without authorization.” Staff then checked other locations and found a second reinstalled camera. The city said both would be removed promptly.
Dayton city administrator Zach Doud told KARE 11 that Flock acknowledged the cancellation and estimated 60 days for removal. The acknowledgement came five days after the city canceled, he said. The Drive reported those comments.
Flock's November 1 statement to The Verge focused on Plymouth. It did not explain why the Dayton cameras were reconnected after the city's hold. The company has not offered a public account of that sequence.
The city's account links the reinstallations to a maintenance work order, not a new agreement. It does not say who at Flock authorized the work.
Is Flock supposed to remove the cameras when a contract ends?
The disputes turn on an unusual property arrangement. Flock leases its cameras and retains ownership of the hardware. The company installs and maintains the equipment, even when it sits on city streets or college campuses.
That ownership limits what a customer can do. In Plymouth, Fadden said the cameras belong to Flock and the city was still waiting for a removal timeline. At Elgin Community College in Illinois, the college faced a practical obstacle: Flock owns the equipment, WBEZ reported.
Flock's press center describes a defined offboarding process. Platform access is disabled, cameras are remotely deactivated, and the company schedules physical removal. “If an agency requests that cameras be turned off before removal, Flock can deactivate them remotely at any time,” the company says.
That statement sharpens the central question. Plymouth says it canceled in September and heard nothing from corporate or legal staff. Flock says it can switch cameras off remotely at any time. The public record does not explain why Plymouth's cameras stayed powered until the chief unplugged them.
The answer may sit in contract language that has not been published. It may also involve internal process failures. Either way, cities are discovering that a vote to cancel is not the same as an order to switch off.
Physical removal is a separate step from deactivation. A camera can be switched off remotely while its pole, solar panel and housing stay in place. A city that cancels a subscription may still host someone else's equipment on public property.
Flock's press center also says it does not disclose individual agency contracts, camera counts or locations. That limits independent verification of removal claims.
What happened at Elgin Community College?
Elgin Community College shows how long the gap can last. The college installed six Flock cameras in April 2025. Within a year, administrators wanted them gone.
The college asked Flock to cancel in October 2025. According to WBEZ, Flock rejected the request within a day because it had not breached the agreement. In December, the college offered to pay the remaining five months of the contract and asked again for removal. President Peggy Heinrich said the college received no response.
Staff covered the cameras with black trash bags and zip ties. Heinrich said workers in an unmarked vehicle, which she assumed belonged to Flock, repeatedly removed the coverings. The back-and-forth continued until the contract expired in April 2026, when Flock removed the cameras.
The college's concern was not abstract. In September 2025, ICE detained an Elgin student in a campus parking lot, WBEZ reported. More than half of Elgin's students identify as Latino. Heinrich said enrollment dipped and students were afraid to come to class.
Public records showed data from Flock cameras at other Illinois campuses was searched dozens of times. The searches were connected to immigration enforcement, WBEZ reported. The Illinois Secretary of State found that US Customs and Border Protection searched Illinois Flock data in violation of state law. Flock says federal agencies can no longer access local data unless a law enforcement agency grants access.
The Elgin case adds a second lesson. Even a customer willing to pay the rest of a contract may not get an early exit. The equipment belongs to the vendor, and the vendor controls the removal schedule.
A bag over the lens does not change the contract. The college had to wait for the agreement to expire.
Why are cities canceling Flock contracts?
Cities are not canceling over a single complaint. Officials cite data sharing, immigration enforcement, officer misuse and eroding public trust.
A Minnesota Star Tribune investigation found federal agencies had accessed Flock data in Minnesota. The access was for civil immigration enforcement, MPR News reported. State law limited the data's use to criminal investigations. A Washington Post investigation found authorities had accused at least 50 officers of misusing Flock data. Some cases involved stalking women, MPR reported.
Plymouth had its own flashpoint. In June 2026, Flock cameras helped police track a car that had been wrongly entered as stolen in another state. Four officers stopped resident Joel Feder and his wife, according to The Drive. CBS News Minnesota reported that the plate had been entered incorrectly in a nationwide database.
Flock said an alert should guide an investigation, not serve as the only reason for a stop. The company later changed some policies on data retention and accountability, CBS reported. Flock CEO Garrett Langley also acknowledged failures and announced changes, The Drive reported.
Supporters still describe a useful tool. Plymouth police told the council that the cameras helped detain suspects after a drive-by shooting. They also said the cameras helped locate a domestic assault suspect, MPR reported. Flock says its technology supported more than one million criminal investigations and public safety incidents in 2025. The company also says it helped locate more than 10,000 missing people.
Those figures come from the company, not an independent audit. They sit alongside the misuse findings and the cancellation votes. The debate is not whether cameras can help solve crimes. It is whether the network's reach and retention justify the risks.
The backlash is wider than Plymouth. More than a dozen Minnesota jurisdictions have paused or ended Flock use, including St. Paul, Duluth and Sherburne County, MPR reported.
Flock's network is central to its value. Local agencies can search cameras operated by other departments that opt in, The Verge reported. That can help track a vehicle across jurisdictions. It also means one agency's data can be available to many others.
Plymouth council member Joel Spoonheim said the cameras can be life-saving in local hands. He also worried about people outside Plymouth accessing the data, MPR reported. Mayor Wosje said he weighed public safety against “basically the bad PR that Flock has.”
Some cities have gone further than Plymouth. St. Paul and Crystal removed their cameras themselves after council votes, The Drive reported, citing KARE 11. Crystal Police Chief Pete Underthun said he personally took down cameras and poles. The equipment was waiting in a garage for Flock to collect.
Flock has its own public-safety figures. Spokesperson Courtney Terlecki said West Virginia cameras sent alerts about 21 missing people this year. She said the cameras also flagged more than 900 stolen plates or vehicles, The Verge reported. She described the system as an investigative lead.
What does Flock say?
Flock disputes the suggestion that it ignores cities. “We respect the city's decision and are working with the customer to have the cameras removed,” spokesperson Andrew Smith said. He spoke to The Verge on November 1.
The company also told KARE 11 that it is responsible for removing its cameras. “Each timeline varies but we work with customers to communicate our process and remove them as soon as possible,” Flock said. The Drive reported the statement.
On its press center, Flock says communities have the authority to evaluate public safety technology. It says it respects those decisions and that public safety and privacy can coexist. The company also supports legislation that sets guardrails for license plate readers.
Flock says it does not share specifics about individual contracts, camera counts or deployments. That leaves cities as the main source for local removal details.
Those statements do not resolve the specific cases. Flock has not explained the Dayton reinstallations. It did not answer The Drive's questions beyond linking to its media FAQ page. It also did not answer WBEZ's questions about Elgin.
The Verge added Flock's comment to its November 1 story after publication. The company's response addressed Plymouth, not the pattern across cities.
What happens next?
Plymouth's mayor race is the first political test. Mayor Jeff Wosje was the only council member who voted against canceling. He faces Clark Gregor on November 3, 2026, according to Ballotpedia. The result will show whether voters back the cancellation or the mayor's public-safety argument.
Removal dates are the next test. Dayton expects up to 60 days. Plymouth is still waiting for a date. Watch whether Flock deactivates cameras remotely while they remain mounted, as its policy allows.
Contract language will matter more than press statements. Cities will want clear removal deadlines, remote-deactivation guarantees and confirmation of who owns the hardware. Elgin's experience suggests an early-exit request can stall even when a customer offers to pay.
The wider fight is moving to ballots and courts. In Huntington, West Virginia, the council approved a $2.1 million Flock contract on a 6-4 vote in July 2026. The ACLU of West Virginia sued, alleging that the city acted hastily and did not follow its own laws. A petition drive is collecting signatures for a citywide vote.
The petition needs about 2,700 signatures to force a council vote. It had 1,600 by mid-September, The Verge reported. Council member Tia Rumbaugh told The Verge that the privacy policy pointed to a URL she worried could change. She also said disputes would be resolved in Atlanta.
The reporting reviewed here does not include a court ruling that Flock must remove cameras by a specific date. The ACLU lawsuit in Huntington challenges the procurement process, not the removal schedule.
State law could change the baseline. Minnesota already limits ALPR data use to criminal investigations, according to MPR. Access rules and enforcement remain the focus.
For residents, the practical lesson is simple. A canceled contract does not always mean the cameras stop watching that day. In several cities, the hardware stayed in place until someone unplugged it, covered it or took it down.