Two key public safety leaders openly raised concerns last night (Tuesday) about a County Board vote to end the use of Flock license-plate readers.
“There are some crimes that, without this, will not be solved,” Police Chief Andy Penn told Board members, responding to a Sept. 15 vote to discontinue the use of 41 Flock Safety cameras around the county.
Penn and Aaron Miller, the county’s deputy county manager for public safety, said that removing the equipment takes away a tool that police have been using appropriately.
“It allows us to move rapidly [to] respond to legitimate public-safety concerns,” Penn said. “It has been instrumental in solving a host of different crimes here in Arlington.”
“It did provide, in our opinion, officers with a good investigative tool,” said Miller, who added:
“We have been able to use it to locate endangered and missing adults and juveniles, particularly in time-sensitive cases where rapid location may have prevented serious harm. We have successfully recovered stolen vehicles [and] other property. We successfully used it to identify wanted individuals and vehicles connected to serious criminal incidents, including carjackings, armed robbery, homicide as well as kidnapping.”
“Absolutely it increased the closure rates of cases,” Miller said of camera use.
Despite that unusual level of public pushback from staff under County Manager Mark Schwartz, Board members gave no indication they were reconsidering their decision.
Several Board members said their concerns about the equipment were based less on the potential for misuse of the data locally, which they viewed as limited, and more on the possibility it could be misused by others, including the federal government.
“Nothing’s safe — there’s always a back door” to access supposedly secure information, Board member Julius “J.D.” Spain, Sr., said.
“We find ourselves in this position not because Arlington did anything wrong,” Spain said. “We start from a national level, and it has found its way into every locality, just about, across America, and now we have to grapple with it.”
Despite backlash from Miller and Penn — with Schwartz looking on but not commenting — the county government’s relationship with Flock appears to be at a permanent end.
“We are taking all the steps as quickly as possible to get the company to take the cameras back,” County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said. “We are doing all the steps to make sure there is no [further] recording.”
Still, Board members appeared open to considering other types of surveillance equipment if the right level of safeguards could be achieved.
De Ferranti and Vice-Chair Maureen Coffey said more information was needed before making future decisions:
- “We will not do that without a public process,” de Ferranti said.
- “There’s no secret plan up here,” Coffey added.
“We have a lot of learning to do, both on the Board and as a community. We have to do that together,” de Ferranti said.
“We’re going to need some time,” Coffey added. “We’re working on it, we’re thinking about it.”
ARLnow first reported the cameras’ arrival in October 2024, after tipsters spotted devices bearing the Flock Safety logo on traffic signal poles along Fairfax Drive in Ballston. The system went fully live that January, at a cost of $106,250 plus a $93,000 annual fee covering maintenance, data security and customer service.
Unlike the county’s older plate readers, in use since 2012, the Flock cameras capture vehicle make, model, bumper stickers and damage. ACPD has said the cameras are not used for traffic enforcement and that data is deleted after 30 days unless it relates to a criminal investigation.
The department never formally presented the program at a County Board meeting. Selecting Flock “ultimately was an administrative decision,” county spokesperson David Barrera told ARLnow in January 2025, though he said the Board was briefed on the reasons and had set aside funding for cameras and related technology in 2023.
The County Board’s vote last week came amid a national backlash that has turned Flock into a 2026 campaign issue. Candidates in both parties are running on bans, funding cuts and warrant requirements.
At last night’s meeting, county staff said they did not know of any direct alternatives to Flock cameras.
Though clearly displeased with the Board’s action removing the cameras, Penn pledged to work collaboratively moving forward to find compromises.
“I understand the concerns being raised, and we recognize and appreciate and agree with the importance of having sound policy and procedures,” he said.
The county’s Information Technology Advisory Commission will discuss the issue at its monthly meeting tonight (Wednesday) at 7:30 p.m. at the county government’s headquarters. The meeting will also be streamed online.
