ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 A 77-year-old St. Petersburg man known as the \u201cFlock blocker\u201d says he is ending his protest against license plate reading cameras after two months because of health concerns, but another resident plans to continue blocking the cameras\u2019 views.<\/p>\n
Carl Gunn has been protesting Flock cameras in St. Petersburg by using a sign attached to a pole to block the cameras from capturing vehicle information. Gunn has called the cameras \u201cunwarranted government mass surveillance\u201d and an invasion of privacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hanging up my pole for my health reasons,\u201d Gunn said. \u201cI did this, I was told not to do it because of my age.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gunn said his goal was to draw public attention to the cameras and push for them to be taken down and declared illegal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have accomplished what I started out for,\u201d Gunn said. \u201cI got the public\u2019s interest. I got more than what I thought I was going to get out of this. And it’s working. They’re coming down like dominoes.”<\/p>\n
Since Gunn\u2019s protests began, the Pasco County Sheriff\u2019s Office and the Florida Highway Patrol have taken down their Flock cameras. The St. Petersburg Police Department publicly defended its use of the cameras.<\/p>\n
St. Pete police said Flock cameras have helped solve three murder cases this year. Police agencies say the cameras are an investigative tool that can help solve crimes and find missing people, and they stress the cameras capture license plates and vehicle information, not the people inside vehicles.<\/p>\n
Gunn said that although he is stepping away, the protest will continue. Tyler Knight, 35, plans to take his place.<\/p>\n
Knight said he first met Gunn was while Gunn was blocking a camera near Lake Maggiore. Knight said a video he recorded of the encounter went viral.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just saw an opportunity of like, a boomer and then somebody from my generation actually coming together and seeing a common situation and being like, we need to fix this problem,\u201d Knight said.<\/p>\n
Gunn said he is proud of the attention his protest brought to the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very proud of what I\u2019ve done,\u201d Gunn said. \u201cI wish I could have done more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 A 77-year-old St. Petersburg man known as the \u201cFlock blocker\u201d says he is ending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2968,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135],"class_list":["post-403940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-josh-rojas","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}