Case After Case Shows Flock Cameras Help Lock Up Criminals And Deter Criminal Behavior In Communities Across America
Flock Safety cameras have become a flashpoint in cities and towns across America, as local governments install the license-plate-reading network in public spaces to fight crime and “DeFlock” activists demand the cameras be ripped out over privacy concerns.
Lost in that debate are the actual numbers. According to Flock’s 2025 Impact Census, described as the largest study of police automated license-plate-reader usage ever conducted, covering nearly 700 law enforcement agencies across 43 states, the technology supported more than 1 million criminal investigations and incidents in a single year.
Roughly 1 in 5 cases cleared by law enforcement in jurisdictions using Flock involved the technology, and 42 percent of agencies report Flock helped them recover half or more of the stolen vehicles in their jurisdiction that year. Those numbers include some of the most horrific crimes imaginable: child abduction, murder, and armed robbery.
In Pinebluff, North Carolina, a Flock camera roughly a mile from a triple-homicide scene captured a vehicle traveling toward the home, then leaving minutes later, directly contradicting the suspect’s account of what happened. Bobby Farris, 63, Christina Aggelis, 62, and Trinity Thomas, 20, were found dead with gunshot and stab wounds inside a Moore County residence on August 12, 2026. Demetrius Aggelis, 40, was arrested and charged with three counts of murder and first-degree burglary and remains in custody without bond.
Flock’s Impact Census estimates the technology helps law enforcement locate approximately 10,000 missing persons every year, equivalent to over 27 people every single day or a little more than one per hour.
In Lake City, Florida, a woman fled into the police department lobby on August 10, 2026, after her boyfriend, Branch Stamper, allegedly knocked her to the floor and choked her in front of officers. Stamper, who has no biological or legal relationship to either of the woman’s children, then stole her Kia Seltos from the police parking lot with both kids still inside and drove off. Officers used the Flock license-plate-reader network together with location data pulled from the mother’s cell phone to locate the vehicle near NE Lake Drive within hours, recover both children unharmed, reunite them with their mother, and arrest Stamper. Another violent criminal has been taken off the street thanks to Flock technology.
In Senoia, Georgia, a July 31 traffic stop turned up a missing juvenile who had been reported missing out of Pasco County, Florida, along with three other children and three pets crowded into the vehicle. Investigators had run a search using Flock cameras after other efforts to locate the vehicle failed, capturing footage of the suspects’ vehicle driving out of Florida. The missing child turned out to be the biological son of one of the adults in the car, Kayton Lee Elmer, who has no parental rights to the boy, and Elmer was arrested alongside his girlfriend, Aja-Linn Eddy, on interference-with-custody charges.
And in Atlanta, a mother’s car was stolen with her 2-year-old daughter still inside while she made an Instacart delivery. Police used the city’s license-plate-reader network to locate the vehicle, the suspect, and the little girl in under 15 minutes. The child was found unharmed and reunited with her parents; the suspect now faces kidnapping and child-cruelty charges.
Following a burglary at a Columbia, Missouri business in which a glass door was shattered and roughly $50,000 in merchandise was taken, Columbia police detectives identified the suspect’s vehicle using Flock Safety cameras, leading to the arrest of 31-year-old Casey Rushin on suspicion of second-degree burglary, felony stealing, and first-degree property damage.
In Choctaw, Oklahoma, Flock cameras helped investigators identify a vehicle tied to a $20,000 burglary. Stolen tools, a gun safe, and firearms were recovered, and the suspect was arrested. And in California, a Flock camera alert led deputies to a burglary suspect wanted out of Amador County, who was tracked and arrested in nearby Elk Grove.
Grand theft auto has historically been one of the hardest crimes for police to close. FBI crime statistics show only about 9.2 percent of GTA cases nationwide are cleared by law enforcement. Flock is changing that math fast. In LaGrange, Georgia, officers located a stolen vehicle within 13 minutes of the theft report using Flock cameras. When the driver fled during a traffic stop, the chase ended after the vehicle struck a fence, and two juveniles were arrested on foot. The car was returned to its owner.
In Charles City County, Virginia, a Flock camera alert flagged a vehicle that had been reported stolen out of New York. Deputies stopped the car and found a box of gold coins and a gold bar inside, a discovery that cracked open a multi-state elder-fraud scheme spanning six states, in which elderly victims were persuaded to buy gold that was then shipped to New York to be melted down. Roughly $2 million is expected to be returned to a victim in James City County, and both suspects now face vehicle theft and larceny charges.
In Michigan, a stolen-vehicle chase ended with the driver running from police into a soybean field before she was caught, in yet another example of the stolen cars Flock-equipped departments are recovering, which used to simply disappear.
The data shows that Flock cameras are rapidly solving some of America’s most horrific crimes, like murder, child abduction, and elder fraud, while serving as a real deterrent to would-be criminals.
Anyone arguing to rip the cameras out owes the public an explanation for which of these cases they’d have preferred went unsolved.
