OSHKOSH, Wis. (WFRV) – In an unexpected turn of events, Oshkosh officials have unanimously voted to rescind an agreement with Flock Group, Inc. to renew their contract to have license plate reader cameras in the city.
The announcement comes less than 24 hours after common council members voted to renew their contract with Flock for at least one year.
So what changed in less than 24 hours? Local 5 News spoke to Oshkosh Police chief Dean Smith to get insight into how it all unfolded.
Chief Smith said that when he came into work on Wednesday morning his staff alerted him to a major issue with how the Flock representatives had pitched their product to council members the previous night.
“Our staff, our police officers believe in this type of technology but they want to make sure they get it right,” Smith said.
The police chief said the Flock representative had provided inaccurate information about the cameras’ capabilities. When asked by a council member if the Flock cameras create a heat map of a vehicle’s movements using multiple aggregate images for a specific searched vehicle the Flock representative said “no, that is not available.’
Chief Smith said this information was inaccurate. He wouldn’t speculate on whether he thought the Flock representative lied or if the inaccurate information was an innocent mistake.
Smith said as soon as he became aware of this he alerted city staff and recommended that council members rescind the renewal agreement they had voted to approve on Tuesday night. He said in the spirit of transparency he couldn’t ignore the Flock representative’s misrepresentation of fact given that the camera use was already very controversial.
“The relationship I have with council is one based on trust and the trust I have with council is sacred and if I have information that changed it’s my responsibility to share it with council,” Smith said.
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“Our representative understood the question as asking if people can be tracked using the Flock system, to which the answer is categorically “no,” Flock ‘s Chief Communications officer Josh Thomas told Local 5 News. “The Flock LPR (license plate reader) system captures still images of the exterior of a vehicle, at fixed points in time, with a short data retention period by design (30 days). It does not create a pattern of life, as ruled by dozens of courts around the country; it cannot identify drivers and does not contain any information about the people in the vehicle.”
Ahead of the council voting to approve the Flock camera renewal on Tuesday evening, several dozen community members spoke out against the technology. Many of those folks returned on Wednesday to watch the council unanimously rescind their contract renewal agreement with Flock.
On Wednesday, speakers expressed a wide range of reactions to the dramatic turn of events. Many said they were happy that things ended up going in the direction that they had hoped. Others said they were frustrated with the common council for not listening to them the first time and originally voting for the Flock cameras.
Several speakers thanked Chief Smith for alerting city officials of the Flock representative’s mistake saying it showed good character.
“I’m going to echo what others have said, I do appreciate all the transparency that the city and the police department are bringing around this issue,” one speaker said during the public comment section of the meeting.
Other speakers emphasized that the public must be involved in any future decisions about police cameras.
“Flock is a private company looking to make a quick profit before they get sued, they don’t look out for us,” Talon Kujawa said. “That’s what the police department and council do (look out for us) and we just need to build together as a community.”
“I get that we all want to feel safe, but the only thing that we should all be feeling right now is manipulated by the Flock camera representatives,” another person said.
“We don’t always know everything we’re looking at and it’s not a weakness to rely on someone else’s expertise,” another speaker said to make the case for a community-led committee that would help guide how future police cameras would get used in the city.
Speakers said they were very concerned that the Flock cameras invade their privacy and that the cameras’ data could get hacked and fall into the hands of bad actors.
Before unanimously voting to rescind the Flock contract, every council member gave their thoughts about the situation. Some apologized for their vote on Tuesday evening.
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“I’m deeply embarrassed and sorry for the recommendation to approve this contract that I made last night,” councilman Karl Buelow said. “I’m sorry specifically for the amount of weight I gave to aspects of this topic that led me to a clearly incorrect decision.”
Mayor Matt Mugerauer and councilman Paul Esslinger said they still believe the Flock camera technology is a good tool for public safety. But they said that given the revelation that Flock had provided them with inaccurate information, changing course on the camera renewal was the right thing to do.
“In regards to last night, I stand by my vote in terms of the technology and what’s best for this community, that doesn’t change,” mayor Mugerauer said. “But I absolutely understand the chief’s recommendation.”
Chief Smith said they’re in the process of phasing out their two dozen or so Flock cameras scattered around the city. He said they should finish this process before summer begins.
He said it might take officers longer to solve crimes now that they can’t utilize the Flock cameras. When asked directly if he’d ever consider working with Flock again, he said ‘”I don’t really have an answer to that question.”
“It’s disappointing to hear that one small misconception stated during a two-hour meeting, after many other meetings with Oshkosh’s leaders and police command staff, has resulted in this outcome,” a Flock official said in a statement.
The Flock officials said they asked city officials and the police department if they could “clear up any confusion directly, but have not been afforded the opportunity.”
“It’s troubling that such a minor nuance will cause the removal of a system that has been highly successful in improving public safety in Oshkosh and, just this week, played a key role in the capture of the Most Wanted murder suspect in Wisconsin,” the Flock official said in the statement.
Oshkosh police officers said they were first introduced to Flock cameras back in 2022 and installed their first cameras in 2023.
