Nearly half of the 3,830,002 searches run through the Prescott Police Department’s Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader network from Jan 1 through June 30 carried no case number, according to network audit logs Larson Newspapers obtained Aug 19 through a public records request — although the real figure is higher.
The department’s own searches show a case number 100% of the time in the network log but the numbers are redacted, shown only as asterisks. The unredacted internal log has 8,778 searches, 101 have no real case number, listing only “investigation,” “training” “test,” “demo” “UNK” unknown or an outside agency’s name such as “Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office.”
The top 10 agencies running searches of the Prescott PD’s Flock network are all outside of Arizona with a total of 1,376,301 searches, or 35.9% of the total. The top searchers are comparable to the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office’s network.
The Dallas Police Department ran the most searches with 306,876, followed by the California Highway Patrol with 265,802 and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office with 212,490.
The use of Prescott’s network is more concentrated than CCSO’s, with 594 agencies searching Prescott’s network compared to 3,815 agencies across the nation looking up the CCSO network however, the number of searches of Prescott’s network outpaced CCSO’s.
Case numbers were not the only gap. Flock records a search reason as a dropdown category and a typed explanation. Only 32 of the 3.83 million searches of the Prescott PD network left the category blank, however, 1,000,738 searches had no written explanation.
Prescott Police Searches
According to Prescott PD’s internal logs, narcotics led its searches with 1,853, followed by larceny with 687, welfare checks 661, hit-and-run 588, warrants 525, vehicle theft 407 and domestic assault 365. Financial crimes accounted for 351, traffic infractions 298, threats 266, assault 251, missing persons 243, reckless driving 238, DUI 217, burglary 213, homicide 199 and disorderly conduct 197. Other searches were stolen property 154, child abuse 117, sex offenses 111, vandalism 100, robbery 77, trespass 65, weapons offenses with 37, kidnapping 34, terroristic threats 19, arson 14, stalking 12 and prostitution six.
Five searches cited human trafficking, all citing only one case number, in January.
Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office
YCSO ran 271 searches of the Prescott PD network, compared to the 106 searches it ran of the CCSO network over a longer period.
Burglary accounted for 81, missing persons 28, stolen property 19, financial crime 19, narcotics 18, sex offenses 18, homicide 15 and arson 13. Threats and weapons offenses each drew 10, stalking eight, larceny seven, warrants six, reckless driving six, vandalism four, pornography/ obscene material three, vehicle theft three and hit-and-run two. One search listed its reason simply as “Investigation”.
Of the 271 searches, 182 carried a case number, 89 did not and 92 included no written explanation.
No YCSO search cited “human trafficking”.
Cottonwood Police Department
The Cottonwood Police Department ran 624 searches of the Prescott PD network, closely tracking the 649 searches of the CCSO network previously reported by The Journal over a longer window.
Cottonwood PD attached a case number to 272 searches and left 352, or 56.4%, blank, and 345 searches, 55.3%, had no written explanation. Domestic assault led with 116, followed by traffic infractions with 78, narcotics 61, vehicle theft 46, missing persons 42, welfare checks 38, warrants 34, sex offenses 34, hit-and-run 28, assault 21, larceny 21 and stolen property 18. Weapons offenses and disorderly conduct drew 12 each, burglary 11, trespass 10, protective order violations nine, threats seven, DUI seven, kidnapping four, fleeing three and homicide two.
No CPD search cited human trafficking of either network.
Camp Verde Marshal’s Office
CVMO was cited in 26 searches of the Prescott network that were done by the Cottonwood PD, which ran 20, and the Prescott PD, which ran six. Of the 26, 14 carried a case number and 12 did not.
Partners Against Narcotics Trafficking
The Prescott PD ran all 287 searches citing Partners Against Narcotics Trafficking, a task force comprised of officers from multiple Yavapai County agencies.
Narcotics accounted for 243 of the searches and homicide or death investigations 22, with another 22 logged under the free-text reason “PANT drug suspect.” Every task force search carried both a case number and a written explanation.
The searches clustered heavily in January, which accounted for 159 of the 287. February had 20 searches, March 22, April 20, May 41 and June 25.
The lack of case numbers in searches of the Prescott PD network is consistent with a similar review by Larson Newspapers of the CCSO’s network audit logs for Jan. 1 through July 22, which showed 53.8% of 3,259,997 recorded searches carried no case number — the case number field was also redacted in the CCSO logs.
“While law enforcement officers conducting searches of Flock records are ostensibly required to document the reasons for their searches, that documentation can be functionally meaningless,” the Arizona Daily Sun wrote on Aug. 20, following up on Larson Newspapers’ work reporting on the CCSO network.
“In multiple instances, officers whose searches included [the CCSO’s] network described their reason simply as ‘Other Investigation,’ or even just ‘Other Other,’ without listing an associated case number. It is impossible to know what the reasons for those searches were, or on whose behalf they may have been conducted”
Leaving the Flock
Across Arizona, a number of cities have canceled their contract with Flock, with the city of Tempe announcing Wednesday, Aug. 26, that it canceled its contract and shut off its network.
“While the cameras have helped Tempe Police solve crimes, recent misuse of automated license plate reader systems in Arizona and nationwide has raised concerns about the risks that come with the technology,” Tempe wrote in its announcement, noting that it found no misuse of its own Flock network.
A Chandler officer announced his resignation on Aug 13 for using the system to follow a family member after the city announced “our routine audit process identified an anomaly in the use of the Flock system that could not be explained through standard police action,” and the termination of its Flock ALPRs on Aug 7. Other agencies that have moved on from Flock over the last month include the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, Goodyear, Surprise, Tempe and Cave Creek.
“A former Apache Junction police officer resigned after admitting he misused Flock camera technology to track his wife, according to internal affairs records,” Arizona’s Family Investigates reported on Aug. 20. “Two telecommunications officers who helped him search the system were also disciplined.”
Flock announced changes on Aug. 13 against a backdrop of similar misuse allegations nationwide. It has reduced its default retention setting from 30 to seven days, a new filter that allows agencies to only share their data for searches of specific types of criminal offense on outside agencies.
The company also announced “Evidence Mode.”
“Our analysis shows that more than 90% of searches without a full plate are done within a week,” the company wrote in the Aug 13 announcement. “Evidence Mode, which will roll out in the coming weeks, addresses the exceptional cases that take longer: Detectives can preserve specific ALPR data as evidence for an active investigation in cold storage, consistent with existing laws and policies.”
Flock did not respond to a prior request from Larson Newspapers about the YCSO’s usage of their network.
The Cottonwood PD did not turn over its Flock network audit logs to Larson Newspapers by deadline on Friday, Aug 28, after a public records request was filed on July 17.
