Flock Cameras in Deer Park

What Deer Park bought, what it costs, and what the record shows

Lawsuits and payouts

One confirmed payout exists in the public record for a Flock-related wrongful stop: $35,000, paid by the City of Toledo. Flock did not pay it. That pattern — cities defending and cities paying — is the most important thing on this page, and it is the reason a nine-camera city should read the indemnification clause before renewing.

What we can and cannot tell you

We want to be direct about the limits here, because "lawsuits from wrongly accused and their payouts" is a subject where numbers get inflated fast.

Confirmed settlement amounts in the public record: one. Toledo's $35,000, documented in the city's own ordinance.1

Confirmed settlements or judgments against Flock Safety itself: none that we could find. The class action against the company is at the pleading stage. No settlement fund, no claims process, no payout.2

Anyone who tells a council member that Flock has paid out large sums to wrongly accused drivers is, as far as the record we could assemble shows, wrong. The suits that have produced money have been against cities.

That is not a reassuring finding. It is the opposite.

The one confirmed payout: Toledo, Ohio

In April 2024 a Flock camera misread a digit on Brandon Upchurch's Dodge Ram — a 7 read as a 2 — and flagged the vehicle as stolen. The felony stop that followed involved a police dog injuring his arm, and he was held in custody for several hours.3,4

The outcome is in Toledo's own legislation. Ordinance O-457-25, introduced September 17, 2025 and passed October 7, 2025, authorized settlement of Upchurch v. City of Toledo, No. 3:25-cv-711 (N.D. Ohio), for $35,000 from the city's Risk Management Fund.1

Pending: the Volusia County case

This is the most serious ALPR-adjacent case currently in litigation, and the mechanism is worth understanding precisely.

Lindsay Isaacs, 23, was arrested by the Florida Highway Patrol on April 16, 2026 in connection with an October 2025 wrong-way crash on Interstate 4 that killed three people. What placed her in the investigation was that "her vehicle appeared on nearby Flock cameras around the time of the crash," combined with witness descriptions of a black SUV.6

She spent 13 days in jail. Charges were dropped less than two months later when the FHP's own reconstruction team determined the crash occurred on an unlit stretch where a maroon Durango could be mistaken for her black one. A different driver, Alisa Lee Montalvo, 47, was later charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and three counts of leaving the scene of a crash involving death.6

Isaacs' attorney established through time-distance analysis that she could not have been at the scene.7

She has filed a federal civil rights suit naming two FHP sergeants, accusing them of ignoring evidence. Her attorney said "Lindsay is frankly broken" and that she is receiving medical care. FHP declined to comment, citing an active investigation.6 No outcome or payout yet.

Pending: the class action against Flock

Filed February 26, 2026 in San Francisco Superior Court by the Oakland firm Gibbs Mura, with an amended complaint April 3, 2026. The allegation is that Flock shares California motorists' movement data with out-of-state and federal agencies contrary to California law.2

Figures the plaintiffs' firm cites: out-of-state agencies ran searches against the San Francisco Police Department's Flock database more than 1.6 million times in a seven-month window, and outside searches in Los Altos also exceeded one million.2

Flock's response, quoted: the company "takes privacy, legal compliance, and data security extremely seriously" and "intends to vigorously defend itself against the asserted claims and allegations."2

Reporting on the same case includes a detail that is directly relevant to Deer Park. El Cerrito's police chief, Paul Keith, described discovering two federal-sharing incidents at his own department: "We found these two other incidents of federal sharing that came as a surprise to me." He also credited Flock with being responsive and adding new protections.2

A chief discovering federal access to his own cameras after the fact is the pattern in Mountain View, Illinois, and Cleveland too. We collect those on the other cities page.

Pending: the Fourth Amendment challenge

The Institute for Justice sued Norfolk, Virginia on behalf of plaintiffs recorded by the city's Flock network hundreds of times in a few months — one tracked 526 times in four months, a co-plaintiff 849 times. Filed October 21, 2024 in the Eastern District of Virginia.8

The city won. The district court ruled for Norfolk on January 26, 2026. IJ filed its appellate opening brief in the Fourth Circuit on April 12, 2026.8

We include this because it cuts against our position and should be stated anyway: at least one federal court has examined a municipal Flock network and declined to find a constitutional violation. The law is contested and unresolved, which is precisely why this decision belongs to Deer Park's council rather than to a judge. More on the legal posture is on the Ohio law page.

Government enforcement, not private suits

Two actions worth separating from the private litigation, because the plaintiff is a government:

California v. El Cajon. The state Attorney General sued the City of El Cajon in October 2025 for illegally sharing license plate data out of state, and has continued the litigation.9,10 Note again who the defendant is: the city.

Illinois Secretary of State. An audit of 12 agencies found Flock had allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection access to Illinois plate data in violation of state law, and ordered access shut off. Flock's CEO acknowledged the company "didn't create distinct permissions and protocols in the Flock system to ensure local compliance for federal agency users."11,12 An administrative enforcement action, not a lawsuit, and it produced a faster remedy than any of the litigation above.

Cases with no known payout

For completeness, and labeled honestly. Each of these is a documented wrongful stop where we found no settlement reported:

Documented ALPR wrongful-stop cases and their known outcomes
CaseWhat happenedOutcome
Toledo, OH — Apr 2024 Misread digit; felony stop; police dog injury; hours in custody.3 $35,000 settlement paid by the city.1
Volusia County, FL — Apr 2026 Correct read, wrong inference; 13 days jailed; charges dropped.6 Federal civil rights suit pending against two FHP sergeants.6
Jackson Twp, OH — Mar 2023 Plate never removed from a hot list after the reason expired; driver stopped and detained.3 Federal suit filed. No outcome we could confirm.
Española, NM — Jul 2023 Final digit read as a 7 instead of a 2; held at gunpoint; 12-year-old sister placed in a patrol car.13,14 The sisters sued the city.15 No settlement reported.
Sherwood, AR — Feb 2026 Stolen-plate alert; guns drawn on a couple with a six-week-old infant in the back seat.16 Department attributed the false hit partly to a loose plate holder; officer to receive additional training.17 No lawsuit found.
Morristown, TN — 2024 Alert on plate “LOVEY”; the stolen plate was “L0VEY” with a zero, on a different vehicle. A three-year-old was in the car.3 No claim found. Weakly sourced — see below.

The Institute for Justice's broader review identified at least 27 cases since 2018, with guns drawn in nearly two-thirds, and states the figure is "most likely an undercount, perhaps by a significant margin" because no national database of ALPR errors exists.16 Full detail on the accuracy page.

Why this page matters to Deer Park specifically

Three things follow from the record above, and none of them requires accepting a single contested claim.

1. When a plate reader causes a wrongful stop, the city is the defendant. Toledo paid. El Cajon is the defendant in California's suit. The FHP sergeants are the named defendants in Florida. In no case we found did the vendor pay a wrongly stopped driver.

2. Deer Park's exposure is not reduced by its size. Nine cameras in one square mile is dense coverage, and a two-officer deployment with no written policy means that when a stop is questioned, there is no document establishing what the rules were.19 A written retention limit, an approved-use list, and a hotlist review interval are the artifacts a city produces in litigation. Deer Park has none.

3. The contract has moved against the city. Flock's December 2025 terms carved gross negligence out of the liability caps; the February 2026 terms do not contain the phrase "gross negligence" anywhere. December's governing law was the customer's home state; February's is Georgia, with mandatory arbitration.20,21 A city that wants to bring the vendor into a dispute is contracting away its home forum.

Cleveland responded to exactly this by writing a penalty of up to 25 percent of contract value for privacy and data-sharing violations into its ordinance.22 That is what a council does when it understands who pays.

Sources

  1. Government record Ordinance O-457-25: Authorizing the settlement of claims brought in Brandon Upchurch v. City of Toledo, et al.. Toledo City Council. Introduced September 17, 2025; passed October 7, 2025. toledo.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7683298&GUID=A50B871F-4FE3-4168-A8F8-D048B7FB67C9 ↑1↑2↑3Authorizes $35,000 from the city's Risk Management Fund. The underlying suit is Upchurch v. City of Toledo, No. 3:25-cv-711 (N.D. Ohio).Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  2. News reporting Class action lawsuit alleges Flock license plate readers violate CA law and privacy of residents. Ann Rubin, KTVU FOX 2. February 27, 2026. www.ktvu.com/news/class-action-lawsuit-alleges-flock-license-plate-readers-violate-ca-law-privacy-residents ↑1↑2↑3↑4↑5Reports a proposed class action filed against Flock Safety by the Oakland firm Gibbs Mura, alleging Flock shares California motorists' data with out-of-state and federal agencies contrary to California law. The article does not give the case name, court, or docket number. Includes Flock's response that it 'takes privacy, legal compliance, and data security extremely seriously' and 'intends to vigorously defend itself against the asserted claims and allegations.' Also reports El Cerrito's police chief describing two federal-sharing incidents that surprised him. No settlement or payout is reported.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  3. News reporting Case-by-Case: Every Reported Flock License Plate Camera Error to Date. Shawn Henry, The Auto Wire. July 18, 2026. theautowire.com/2026/07/18/case-by-case-every-reported-flock-license-plate-camera-error-to-date ↑1↑2↑3↑4A compilation, not original research; it credits reporting by The Drive and the Institute for Justice and states the list is "very likely incomplete." Individual cases cited on this site are footnoted to their own primary sources wherever one was available.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  4. News reporting Experts issue warning as concerning surveillance camera trend comes to a head. The Cool Down. 2026. www.thecooldown.com/green-business/brandon-upchurch-toledo-traffic-stop-settlement ↑Summarizes a Business Insider review of Toledo police records and WTOL's reporting of the settlement figure.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  5. Government record Frequently Asked Questions: How much does a Flock Safety camera cost?. City of Campbell, California. www.campbellca.gov/FAQ.aspx?QID=279 ↑A city's published pricing statement, not an executed contract. States $2,500 per camera per year plus a one-time $250 installation cost, covering hardware, maintenance, footage hosting, cellular service and software updates.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  6. News reporting Woman wrongly jailed in I-4 deadly crash files lawsuit against Florida Highway Patrol. Haley Coomes, WKMG-TV / ClickOrlando. June 10, 2026. www.clickorlando.com/traffic/2026/06/10/woman-wrongly-jailed-in-i-4-deadly-crash-files-lawsuit-against-florida-highway-patrol ↑1↑2↑3↑4↑5Reports that Lindsay Isaacs, 23, was arrested April 16, 2026 by the Florida Highway Patrol over an October 2025 wrong-way crash in Volusia County that killed three, after her vehicle appeared on nearby Flock cameras around the time of the crash and witnesses described the SUV as black. Charges were dropped less than two months later when FHP's reconstruction team concluded a maroon Durango could be mistaken for her black one on an unlit stretch. Alisa Lee Montalvo, 47, was later charged. Isaacs filed a federal civil rights suit naming two FHP sergeants; the article does not name the court.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  7. News reporting Brickbat: Color Blind. Charles Oliver, Reason. May 28, 2026. reason.com/2026/05/28/brickbat-color-blind-2 ↑Second, independent account of the same case. Reports that Isaacs' attorney used time-distance analysis to establish she could not have been at the scene.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  8. Advocacy org. Norfolk, Virginia camera surveillance (Schmidt v. City of Norfolk case page). Institute for Justice. ij.org/case/norfolk-virginia-camera-surveillance ↑1↑2Filed October 21, 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. District court decision January 26, 2026; appellate opening brief filed April 12, 2026.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  9. Government record Attorney General Bonta Sues El Cajon for Illegally Sharing License Plate Data Out of State. California Office of the Attorney General. October 3, 2025. oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-sues-el-cajon-illegally-sharing-license-plate-data-out ↑Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  10. Government record Attorney General Bonta Continues Legal Challenge to Stop El Cajon from Illegally Sharing License Plate Data. California Office of the Attorney General. oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-continues-legal-challenge-stop-el-cajon-illegally-sharing ↑Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  11. News reporting Company violated Illinois law by sharing license plate data with Customs and Border Protection, Giannoulias says. NBC 5 Chicago. August 25, 2025. www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/company-violated-illinois-law-by-sharing-license-plate-data-with-customs-and-border-protection-giannoulias/3814914 ↑Reports a sample audit of 12 Illinois law enforcement agencies and a CBP pilot program. We tried to cite the Illinois Secretary of State's own press release instead and could not open it, on July 29, 2026; it is not in the Internet Archive either, so we quote this reporting of it.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  12. Government record Giannoulias: Audit finds license plate reader company in violation of state law. Illinois Secretary of State. August 25, 2025. www.ilsos.gov/news/2025/august-25-2025-giannoulias-audit-finds-license-plate-reader-company-in-violation-of-state-law.html ↑Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  13. Advocacy org. The Human Toll of ALPR Errors. Electronic Frontier Foundation. November 2024. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/11/human-toll-alpr-errors ↑Describes the Espanola, New Mexico stop, in which a plate's '2' was read as a '7'.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  14. News reporting When license plate readers get it wrong. CBS News. www.cbsnews.com/news/license-plate-readers-alpr-mistakes ↑National reporting on ALPR misreads, including the Espanola case.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  15. News reporting Sisters sue Espanola over traffic stop they say was illegal. The Santa Fe New Mexican. January 2024. www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/sisters-sue-espa-ola-over-traffic-stop-they-say-was-illegal/article_1c949c30-ae3e-11ee-ad85-f71a8c9ecb1e.html ↑Reports that a camera flagged Jaclynn Gonzales' vehicle in error and that she and her 12-year-old sister were detained. No settlement amount has been reported in this case.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  16. Advocacy org. Dozens of Innocent Motorists Have Been Pulled Over, Detained at Gunpoint, or Jailed Due to AI License Plate Camera Errors. Institute for Justice; by Christopher Ingraham. July 1, 2026, updated July 20, 2026. ij.org/dozens-of-innocent-motorists-have-been-pulled-over-detained-at-gunpoint-or-jailed-due-to-ai-license-plate-camera-errors ↑1↑2A review of press coverage and court filings by a public-interest law firm that also litigates against ALPR programs, so it is an interested party. Finds at least 27 cases since 2018, most since 2023; guns drawn in nearly two-thirds; machine misreads about one-third of the mistakes, the rest officer data-entry or misreading. States the count is 'most likely an undercount.' Names Oak Park, Illinois as the only jurisdiction it found issuing routine error reports.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  17. News reporting Loose plate holder leads to errant traffic stop over Flock camera alert. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. March 2, 2026. www.arkansasonline.com/news/2026/mar/02/loose-plate-holder-leads-to-errant-traffic-stop ↑Local daily reporting with the incident report and department response. Stop occurred February 11, 2026 in Sherwood, Arkansas. The paper attributes the error partly to a loose plate holder, and reports the officer was assigned additional training. No lawsuit has been reported.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  18. Advocacy org. Morristown Police Department: Automated License Plate Readers. Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation / University of Nevada, Reno). September 2025. atlasofsurveillance.org/a/TN0320100ALPR ↑Confirms Morristown, Tennessee operates 10 Flock Safety ALPRs as of September 2025. Does not document the traffic stop.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  19. Government record Police Department. City of Deer Park, Ohio. www.deerpark-oh.gov/departments/police ↑1↑2Checked July 29, 2026 for any mention of ALPR, plate readers, Flock, or camera policy. None appears.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  20. Flock Safety Flock Safety Customer Terms and Conditions, December 2025 version. Flock Safety (mirrored by haveibeenflocked.com). December 20, 2025. haveibeenflocked.com/blog/trojan-contracts/dec-2025-terms.pdf ↑The immediately preceding version of Flock's terms, mirrored. We downloaded and read this PDF directly on July 29, 2026 and confirmed the presence of the clauses that the February 2026 version omits, including section 4.1's sentence 'Flock does not own and shall not sell Customer Data' and all of section 4.3, Training Data.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  21. Flock Safety Flock Safety Customer Terms and Conditions, last updated February 16, 2026. Flock Safety (mirrored by haveibeenflocked.com). February 16, 2026. haveibeenflocked.com/blog/terms-feb2026/feb-2026-terms.pdf ↑Flock's own contract text. Cited from a mirror because Flock's live terms page is rewritten in place each time the terms change and is not reliably archived; we downloaded and read this PDF directly on July 29, 2026 rather than relying on any third party's summary of it. Every quotation on this site from the February terms was verified against this file.Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  22. Government record Amendment to Ordinance No. 683-2026 (as amended, desk copy). Department of Law, City of Cleveland. July 15, 2026. cityofcleveland.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=15693899&GUID=7AC8CF89-050A-435D-88A7-7C46EF9C7726 ↑Two-page amendment signed by Assistant Director of Law Vishnu Ganglani. Cuts the term from one year to six months and the amount from $250,000 to $125,000; adds warrant-only disclosure, a penalty of up to 25 percent of the contract for privacy violations, a public transparency portal, quarterly written reports to the Clerk and Safety Committee, and a bar on sharing data with the Northeast Ohio Regional Fusion Center.Retrieved July 29, 2026.