Former cop who pushed for Palm Bay's Flock cameras calls for shutdown

with six of former police officer fought to bring flock cameras to Palm Bay, but now he wants them gone right now. That program is suspended because of some permitting issues, but some say the license plate readers have gone way too far. Fox 35 Esther Bauer continues our investigation tonight live in Palm Bay. So, Esther, that now retired police officer says the readers need more oversight. When the former officer is concerned, there is not enough checks and balances is to really make sure law enforcement is not misusing this tool and weaponizing it against the public. He is urging the city of Palm Bay to not only suspend these readers behind me, but to shut them down completely. Flock is mass surveillance. That pushback now coming from the former Palm Bay police officer who actually signed this contract and brought flock to Palm Bay. So we were absolutely sold something back in 2021. That isn't what it is today. The former cop says he bought into the program as a way to catch bad guys, and the readers would send alerts to officers if cars linked to crimes were spotted in the city. The whole purpose behind flock was a reactive tool to fight crime. But now he's concerned about citizens, privacy and not enough checks and balances for officers who have access to the readers. We have officers that are being absolutely arrested left and right for misuse of flock. That just happened in Sumter County, where this detective was fired and criminally charged for using flock to gain info on an ex wife of her husband. After Fisher saw that, he sent this email to city council, citing Fox 35 reporting on that crime and demanding an immediate suspension of flock. The program did get suspended in Palm Bay, but it's due to bad permitting. A citywide review is happening now, looking at incorrect installation of the readers across town. Permitting is not the problem. Fisher argues privacy is the bigger issue. But back in May, flock told city officials they take privacy concerns seriously. Privacy is also critically important. The company says driver data is only safe for 30 days in Florida unless a law enforcement agency wants to save specific information related to a case. The data is hard deleted and wiped from the system. The system is also made to track when officers are signed in and searching for information so police chiefs can see if it's being misused. All of your officers activity from the moment you sign up with the company is logged. Palm Bay still has not decided whether or not they will turn the cameras back on after the investigation. And we did ask Palm Bay P. D. For an official copy of the policy of how officers here in Palm Bay are trained to use flock. We also asked for any auditing that's been done since 2021 on the systems. We are still waiting for those documents reporting live in Palm Bay. Esther Mauer Fox 35