\n A Flock Safety automated license plate reader is shown in an undated company image. | Image via Flock Safety\/press release <\/p>\n
Conroe\u2019s adopted budget preserves $127,500 a year for a 51-camera Flock Safety contract<\/a>, even as Dallas prepares to cut 321 cameras and other Texas governments pull back from the technology.<\/p>\n The Conroe City Council did not hold a separate vote on Flock. Members approved<\/a> the city budget 4-2 Thursday with the camera funding included.<\/p>\n At least 23 Texas governments had ended agreements, declined renewals, suspended use or reduced Flock deployments as of September 6, as previously reported<\/a> by The Dallas Express. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas) also issued an August 27 directive<\/a> barring state agencies from spending state money on the cameras. His order did not affect locally funded systems such as Conroe\u2019s.<\/p>\n The system logged roughly 894,000 \u201cunique scans\u201d while investigators searched 642 during the previous 30 days, Buckholtz said<\/a>. Since August 2025, the Crime Reduction Unit has made 202 warrant arrests, with Flock playing a role in 84, police reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n Conroe\u2019s contract<\/a> sets a 30-day retention period. The city\u2019s public presentation did not include its sharing list, complete search logs or case-by-case results. No complaint or evidence of local misuse had surfaced, Buckholtz said<\/a>.<\/p>\n Flock represents a different kind of government power, and \u201cit deserves a fundamentally different level of scrutiny before we keep paying for it,\u201d Council Member David Hairel said<\/a>. Hairel and Council Member Shana Arthur cast the budget\u2019s only opposing votes.<\/p>\n Dallas narrows sharing but leaves gaps<\/p>\n Dallas had 684 cameras as of Tuesday. DPD plans to cancel<\/a> 321 state grant-funded units on September 15, leaving about 360, as The Dallas Express previously reported<\/a>. The Dallas City Council authorized<\/a> a three-year contract worth up to $5.74 million through June 14, 2028.<\/p>\n A council majority also rejected a nonbinding proposal to remove $1.5 million in local Flock funding, as The Dallas Express previously reported<\/a>. The vote signaled support for keeping locally funded cameras after the state-supported units go dark.<\/p>\n DPD\u2019s September 8 update<\/a> treated Flock as the primary factor in 15 homicide cases in 2025 and 13 through September 8 this year. Six days earlier, police told<\/a> council members that Flock had assisted 14 murder cases in 2026. The department has not reconciled the totals or definitions. Police also credited Flock in about 50 business robberies<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n DPD said it had narrowed direct shared search access from more than 1,500 agencies to 202 Texas agencies, with no federal or out-of-state agency currently included, as The Dallas Express reported<\/a> Thursday. A police presentation<\/a> gave the previous count as 1,508. Sgt. Adam Reinhart corrected<\/a> the slide during the meeting.<\/p>\n The 1,508 figure does not mean every agency searched Dallas records. Public records reviewed by DX did not include either agency roster, an exact date for the federal cutoff or a federal-query history.<\/p>\n DPD records also conflict on retention. The current presentation<\/a> says 365 days, while the department\u2019s posted general order<\/a> says 30 days.<\/p>\n Published counts of Dallas searches in 2025 also differ sharply. WFAA reported<\/a> 63,586, while The Dallas Morning News reported<\/a> more than 800,000 based on Flock logs it reviewed. The accounts do not establish whether they measured the same activity.<\/p>\n An incomplete audit from the Danville, Illinois, Police Department captured 17 Dallas-user searches labeled \u201cICE+ERO\u201d in 2025 and one labeled \u201cICE+Suspect\u201d in 2024, The Barbed Wire reported<\/a>. Those labels do not show that federal officers requested the searches, received information or had direct access.<\/p>\n Weekly audits flag about 60 entries that initially lack a case or CAD number, police said<\/a>. That does not automatically make a search improper. One audit found a policy violation involving an incorrect case number and led to summary discipline, Maj. Gabriel Candelaria of Internal Affairs said<\/a>. Officials did not identify the search, purpose or employee.<\/p>\n Some cities walk away<\/p>\n Pflugerville voted unanimously on August 25 to end<\/a> Flock use rather than approve an $87,500 annual agreement for 28 cameras. City figures<\/a> and a later update<\/a> attributed 435 arrests and 257 recovered stolen vehicles to Flock from fiscal 2023 through July 2026 but did not explain how officials counted the results.<\/p>\n A resident who reviewed city audit records counted nearly 1.6 million outside-agency searches over six months, Community Impact reported<\/a>. The number shows the scale of outside access, but not whether the searches produced hits or broke any rules.<\/p>\n Wylie\u2019s council voted<\/a> 7-0 to stop automatic renewal while leaving negotiations open. The department owned eight cameras, five then operating, and its contract cost about $27,000 a year, police said. The system kept records for 30 days, and police reported no known local misuse.<\/p>\n Lufkin police suspended<\/a> Flock after authorities accused Zachary Anthony Klein, then a Lufkin officer, of using the system to track an ex-girlfriend. A grand jury later indicted<\/a> Klein on 100 counts of misuse of official information. An arrest affidavit<\/a> alleged he searched the woman\u2019s plate more than 10,000 times. The charges remain allegations.<\/p>\n Cities still lack a common measure<\/p>\n Fort Worth police cite one of the clearest benefits. A 2023 city record<\/a> listed 258 cameras in the Flock system and $531,000 in total annual Flock spending, including livestream integration and FlockOS. The cameras helped officers make more than 2,000 arrests since 2020, Police Chief Eddie Garcia said<\/a>. The city did not publish how it calculated the arrest total.<\/p>\n