No timeline yet when the automated license plate readers will be removed
Following a series of newspaper stories about searches of Cottonwood’s Flock Safety automated license plate reader data and subsequent public outcry, the Cottonwood Police Department’s network of 11 Flock ALPRs are no more.
Cottonwood City Manager Mario Cifuentez announced that the city is canceling its contract for the cameras during the City Council work session Tuesday, Sept 22.
Cifuentez and Cottonwood Police Chief Brian Freudenthal announced Sept. 4 that they had shut off cameras, and they were later covered by black plastic bags by city staff.
“Our plan at this point is to cancel the Flock contract agreement for ALPRs,” Cifuentez said. “There may come a time where we will look at it, depending on rulings and legislation.
“Should there come a point in the future where the chief and I believe that it’s a tool we should consider, we’ll start with public meetings and true hearings back and forth where folks can ask questions specific to any product that we may look at in the future.”
Mayor Ann Shaw did not have a timeline for the cameras physical removal or for when the contract will be officially terminated.
The end of the camera contract does not affect the city’s separate agreement with Flock Safety for the CPD’s lease of the company’s drones.
“It’s probably going to be a while before the Flock cameras” physically come down, Shaw told The Journal. She said the city’s Public Works Department will likely remove them because “Flock cameras are coming down all over the country,” and she doesn’t expect the company to have time to remove Cottonwood’s.
Sedona City Council removed its cameras in September following news reporting about their installation in the Sedona Red Rock News, The Journal’s sister newspaper.
Flock Searches
On June 17, 2025 Cottonwood City Council accepted a $213,992.80 grant from the Arizona Department of Public Safety to bolster anti-human trafficking efforts with the grant money cited in the purchase agreement for Flock Safety products.
From Jan. to July 24, 2026, CPD ran 4,335 searches of the network, with roughly 27% of the searches traffic infractions and hit-and-runs, as previously reported by The Journal.
None of the 4,335 searches cited human trafficking.
“We never utilized that human trafficking grant for license plate readers,” Freudenthal said during the meeting, adding that the Flock system was funded through a standard budget line item. “That grant was a reimbursement grant.”
Neither CPD, the Sedona Police Department nor any municipal Verde Valley law enforcement agency submitted cases to the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office involving charges of sex trafficking, trafficking of persons for forced labor or child sex trafficking three different state statutes -between Jan. 1, 2023, to the present, according to a public records request provided to The Journal on Sept. 1.
“I appreciate you guys making this decision internally, without having a bunch of bureaucrats getting in the middle of it,” said Councilman Chris Dowell, a former CPD commander and interim chief and Sedona Police Department patrol commander.
“It is, and my hope is, and I believe the direction we’re going is, you know, we are going to wait on legislation,” Councilman Bob Marks said. “We’re going to wait on the findings of the Attorney General”
He added that once guidance is provided, “we will comply with that guidance and install the technology to help solve crimes, protect people, and protect property.”
Audience members interjected at several points during the work session with council members stating at several points that they were not taking public comment that afternoon under open meeting laws, public comments are rarely, if ever, agendized during work sessions because municipal councils are prohibited from voting, per state statute.
“Now the decision has been made that the Flock camera contract is being canceled,” Shaw said. “So apparently, those of you who are here for this reason have been listened to.
“I do feel like [CPD] may be making a sacrifice on your behalf, so that is worthy of some appreciation, rather than a continuation of the feeling that you’re not being listened to.”
