WTF?! It's not like Flock and its dystopian spying system need any more bad publicity, but here we go: the company and officials from a sheriff's office that uses its cameras are facing a lawsuit from a man who says deputies ran his car through Flock's camera network in retaliation for him suing the sheriff over a previous arrest.
Tyler Murkerson has named Flock, Coweta County, Sheriff Lenn Wood, two sheriff's office employees, and three unidentified operators in his lawsuit. It also seeks class-action status, representing people whose vehicles were searched by Georgia law enforcement without documented investigative justification.
Murkerson previously sued the sheriff and two deputies in Coweta County, alleging that they violated his constitutional rights by forcing him to the ground, using a Taser on him, and arresting him in a gas station parking lot over an alleged seatbelt violation. The suit claims that this happened despite Georgia's seatbelt statute not applying on private property. The criminal charges against him were dismissed in June 2023, and his civil rights lawsuit was resolved in 2026.
While the suit was pending, it's alleged that Coweta County deputies used Flock's ALPR network and associated state and federal law enforcement databases to surveil Murkerson.
It's also claimed that audit records show a surveillance period for Murkerson's 2024 Toyota Camry spanning 197 days, and five searches were attributed to the Coweta County Sheriff's Office, each reaching more than 6,000 agency camera networks nationwide.
Only two of the five searches by Coweta County Sheriff's Office have been disclosed. Their operators are listed as "r.fau" and "w.fau," which the suit says correspond to defendants Randall Faulkner and William Faulkner. The other three operators are sued as John Does.
Murkerson said he only found out about these searches after his cases ended, using HaveIBeenFlocked.com, which we previously covered.
The reasons that were typed into the disclosed searches were "info" and "37." The complaint argues that neither corresponds to any investigation, case, incident, or call for service. It also alleges that William Faulkner used "37" for most searches, providing a case number in just four of his thousands of queries.
Under Georgia law, plate data may only be accessed as part of a law enforcement agency's investigation into an offense or activity. Misusing that data is a crime.
Murkerson also believes he was being followed and watched by the Coweta County Sheriff's Office. He ended a six-year business relationship servicing a neighboring police department's vehicles because he no longer felt safe continuing that work while he was being surveilled, the lawsuit says.
The complaint also accuses Flock of enabling these searches by accepting free-text explanations instead of requiring a verifiable link to an investigation.
Flock has announced mandatory case codes and misuse detection by the end of 2026. Murkerson seeks damages and the deletion of unlawfully obtained records.
Flock is rarely out of the headlines these days. Recent stories include a Florida county's discovery of 14 unauthorized Flock cameras, 11 of which remained unclaimed; a federal judge who ruled a warrantless Flock search unconstitutional and threw out drug evidence; and an engineer who built a Flock-like camera to detect police cars and said officers visited him afterward.
Meanwhile, AOC, Bernie Sanders, and Jeff Merkley have introduced legislation that would largely prohibit federal use of automatic license plate readers and withhold certain federal grants from state and local governments that use them.