PORT ST. LUCIE – A City Council decision last March to expand the Flock Safety traffic camera system that won initial Board approval a few years is now facing a local grass-roots campaign of residents lobbying city officials to remove them altogether due to privacy concerns and several lawsuits around the country filed against alleged misuse of information.
Flock Safety cameras have recently made national headlines due to several law-enforcement officers around the country allegedly abusing the system for personal gain. The relatively new company was launched in 2017 primarily to market its solar-powered cameras to homeowners associations in the suburban Atlanta area to help solve a rash of neighborhood car break-ins. The company began partnering directly with police departments in 2020, and today has agreements with more than 7,000 law-enforcement agencies in 7,000 states included Port St. Lucie. The latest generation of Flock cameras use artificial intelligence to not only record license plate numbers, but the make, model and color of specific vehicles as well as unique identifying characteristics such as bumper stickers.
A handful of PSL citizens addressed the issue during public comment on Aug. 24, despite the fact there was no planned discussion or agenda item related to the issue. Casey Huneycutt was the first to come to the podium.
“I am here today to urge the Council to cancel the city’s contract with Flock Safety,” he said. “Beyond the dozens of examples that we know about law enforcement across the country abusing this technology to stalk exes, friends or potential lovers, the artificial intelligence used by these systems hallucinates like all AI does and is leading to innocent individuals having contact with law enforcement. Families have been ripped from their cars at gunpoint because of mis-reads of these cameras, We are using taxpayer funds to pay a private corporation to harvest our data to be used however they see fit.”
Eileen Huneycutt followed him to the podium, urging the Council to reconsider the action cost, which has risen significantly since the first agreement signed in 2023.
“The contract is an expensive contract and not one I think the city can afford to have any longer,” she said. “We’ve had these discussions before, and I don’t feel they give me any more safety than we already had.”
Rita Noel, in turn, told the Board she’d lost faith in its members to make good decisions after the March Council decision to add more cameras around the city.
“I’m deeply upset that the Council has allowed one of the safest cities in America to expand surveillance of its own community,” she said. “We need policing based on trust, not AI. We need to cancel the contracts of all ALPRs, not just Flock. Is anyone on the Council aware that police departments can opt into Flock’s national data-sharing model [and] that the Pittsboro, Ind. Police Department has a record of PSL camera networks? These agencies are sharing ALPR data.”
For her part, Hannah Galindo acknowledged that she was a familiar face to Board members.
“I’m sure seeing me again feels like dealing with a persistent, ex-boyfriend, ironic given the nationwide cases of officers using Flock cameras to stock their exes,” she said. “This isn’t just about safety right now: It’s about the future we leave behind. Your active push for this surveillance and total disregard for the consequences is a complete failure of leadership.”
Shannon Scott echoed Eileen Huneycutt’s concerns about the rising cost of the program, which is evidenced by the two amendments made to the original contract. The initial $184,100 contract amount approved in 2023 has been increased twice and jumped to more than a quarter of a million dollars. The annual subscription fee increased from $35,000 to $57,500 in 2024 and than to $84,000 last March.
“Currently, the Flock contract has cost the city a little over $266,000,” she said. “Continuing the contract would increase that to $455,000, more than a 70 percent increase, so this is a big price tag.”
Jennifer Patnaude was the last to speak, using her own personal story to demonstrate how a law-enforcement arrest with charges subsequently dropped could easily do damage to a resident’s reputation. Her reputation was tarnished after a 2024 incident on her parked motorcycle spun out of control.
“I displayed my firearm after I was threatened and repeatedly told the other person to leave,” she said. “When I could safely disengage, I put it away and left. This is a direct quote from then Martin county Sheriff William Snyder about me that doesn’t accurately describe what happened: A female on a motorcycle with a handgun. What is she going to to with a handgun, like a cowboy on a horse? It just didn’t make sense. The government helped create a narrative, but I was left responsible for trying to undo the consequences. Someone considering me for housing eventually asked, have you Googled your name recently? I have no recourse to get rid of this.”
Councilman Anthony Bonna was the first Board member to comment on the Flock systems afterward.
“At least 24 agencies on the Treasure Coast in the four [sic] counties have documented use of automated license plate readers, and these were approved before a lot of the examples of national abuses,” he said. “The recent examples of the abuse are undeniable. Also, these questions about privacy are a new area of constitutional law that’s currently being evaluated throughout the country. Flock recently announced some changes to their policies. One of the things that they did was change the 30 -day retention period to seven. They 1788017052 require case numbers for searches and increased auditing.”
While there’s an ongoing class-action lawsuit in California against the firm, a Fourth Amendment Challenge against the City of Norfolk, Va. For its use of Flock cameras and a successful Oregon public records lawsuit, some Arizona cities have already canceled their contracts due to the controversy.
For his part, Bonna thinks the city should temporarily hit the brakes on any further expansion.
“I’d like to see us pause any new technology,” he continued. “I’d like the full report and audit by the police chief presented to Council because we need to really have this new information. I don’t think we should do anything rash – I want to stress that. In 2025, there were not these examples. I do think we need to listen to our residents [and] our law enforcement. We need to strike that appropriate balance.”
The rest of his colleagues, including Vice-Mayor Jolien Caraballo, agreed.
“I appreciate the comments and the questions, as well as the shared concerns,” she said to the residents who’d spoken. “That is how we’re going to actually utilize this technology to ensure that it is safe for the public. The outcry is what pushes back on these companies – as well as government – to ensure that we use these protections to protect you. In my conversations with our Chief [Leo Niemczyk], I have full confidence that the chief is concerned with safety to ensure that people are not kidnapped, harmed, etc., but he’s also concerned with making sure that technology is not personally affecting your privacy.”
Mayor Shannon Martin particularly emphasized the need to educate the public on Flock cameras.
“When it comes to the license plate readers, I agree with the comments my colleagues have made,” she said. “When this [controversy] started coming up, I did have a conversation with the chief and the city manager about what are we doing to educate and have these conversations. As was mentioned by Councilman Bonna, there are cities across the state and other places who have put in policies inline with what their police department is doing, and it does provide for that better education.”
City Manager Jesus Merejo, in turn, confirmed those efforts.
“This is an issue that’s been around for a while, but it’s come to a head at this point,” he said. “The Legal Department, the City Manager’s Office, the PD and our Communication Department are going to be meeting on a regular basis to really see what’s out there, what we can do differently [and] what we put on our [website] landing page where our residents can see what’s going on. We may even have a public meeting with residents and have further conversation.”