Flock Reinstalled Its Cameras After Another City Canceled Its Contract
The Drive ·
Dayton, Minnesota told Flock no work orders were to be completed. The company put two cameras back into service anyway, without authorization. The post Flock Reinstalled Its Cameras After Another City Canceled Its Contract appeared first on The Drive .
The Flock saga is becoming quite a mess and the company is refusing to provide clear-cut answers to what’s going on. On Friday, The Drive reported that Police Chief Eric Fadden had to direct his staff to disconnect the power cords from Flock cameras in Plymouth, Minnesota after Flock Safety ignored and failed to respond to the department’s notice the city was canceling its service. But in other instances Flock’s gone and reinstalled cameras without permission.
On September 29th the city of Dayton, Minnesota posted a community update on its Facebook page alerting residents that Flock had installed and put into service two cameras against the City’s direction without authorization.
The update from the City of Dayton read, “On September 17, 2026, the Police Department was made aware of a maintenance work order produced by Flock. The City notified Flock on September 18, 2026, that the program was on hold, and no work orders were to be completed. Unfortunately, the City’s direction was not followed, and the camera was placed back into service without authorization.”
The statement continued and noted, “Following the report, City staff reviewed locations throughout the community to determine whether any additional cameras had been reinstalled, and one additional location was identified. The Police Department has been notified, and both cameras will be removed promptly.”
The City of Dayton voted to end the use of the cameras and cancel its contract with Flock in August.
On Monday, City of Dayton officials told Minneapolis NBC affiliate Kare 11 , “Flock has acknowledged our cancellation of the contract and has stated that it will take 60 days to remove the equipment from the City,” said Zach Doud, Dayton city administrator. “The timing of the acknowledgement from the action took 5 days from the date of the cancellation to the date that it was acknowledged.”
The city of Plymouth, where I live, voted to end its Flock contract at a city council meeting on September 22, which was just under three months from when four police officers in their squad cars wrongfully ambushed me and my wife after tracking us with Flock cameras for days . On September 23 Plymouth police suspended its use of Flock and notified Flock Safety that the contract would be canceled. “We followed up with a formal letter of cancellation via US Mail and email after consulting with our City Attorney’s Office.” Chief Fadden told The Drive .
Chief Fadden said, “We did not hear any reply from Flock Safety Corporate or Legal, other than some communication with our local representative.” The silence and refusal to communicate from Flock about the contract cancellation led Chief Fadden to handle matters himself. “After hearing nothing for more than a week, I directed our staff to disconnect the power cords from the cameras in order to be sure that they are not functioning or recording plates,” Fadden said.
Flock is a subscription service. Customers subscribe, get access to the app and controls, and Flock Safety installs the hardware where agreed upon. The hardware is owned and operated by Flock Safety. It’s private property despite being placed on property Flock doesn’t own.
While Chief Fadden stopped short of having his staff physically take down the Flock cameras, other cities didn’t. The Minnesota cities of both St. Paul and Crystal told Kare 11 that they removed the Flock cameras themselves following their respective city council votes in August and September respectively. The cameras are stored and are still waiting to be picked up by Flock.
Crystal Chief of Police Pete Underthun told Kare 11 , “Once we made this decision, I personally went to the locations and removed the cameras and poles myself.” Chief Underthun noted, “We are still working with the company to close out our contract and for them to pick the cameras up from our garage.”
Flock, which has not responded to multiple inquiries from The Drive aside from providing a link to the company’s media FAQ page , told Kare 11 on Monday, “Flock is responsible for removing our cameras. Each timeline varies but we work with customers to communicate our process and remove them as soon as possible.” Additionally, Flock said, “We are proud of the impact our technology had in Plymouth and Dayton. We respect the cities’ decisions and are working with the customers to have the cameras removed.”
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The post Flock Reinstalled Its Cameras After Another City Canceled Its Contract appeared first on The Drive .