The Charlottesville police department will drop its use of the Flock license plate reading camera system due to concerns that the federal government might find illegal aliens it is looking for if it gets ahold of the data.
🚨Charlottesville ends use of Flock cameras d/t fear data will be used by @ICEgov to track illegal immigrants
— ((( C-Ville🫧 ))) (@CvilleBubble) December 21, 2025
The tech was instrumental in finding Brown/MIT killer
In one year in C'ville, Flock helped solve a murder, find missing persons, & recover stolen cars, according to… pic.twitter.com/H245cKF6p2
You can't make this up.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) -- The City of Charlottesville will not move forward with the Flock Safety license plate reader system following the conclusion of a yearlong pilot program, despite reported success in helping police solve crimes.
City Council decided during its meeting on Monday, citing concerns largely outside the city’s control.
“I just think that the concerns are much bigger than us,” Charlottesville Police Chief Michael Kochis said.
Over the 12-month pilot period, the Charlottesville Police Department gathered feedback from community members on the use of the Flock camera system.
“Most of the feedback we got was very positive from folks in the community. That being said, there were some concerns,” Kochis said.
Among the primary concerns were how data collected by Flock could potentially be accessed or used beyond the city’s control, including fears it could be obtained by federal agencies for unintended purposes, such as tracking undocumented immigrants.
“The big concerns continue to come up from mostly policymakers that, you know, are they the federal government or the administration in D.C. could get access to it,” Kochis said.
Despite those concerns, Kochis said the system proved effective during the pilot program.
“It’s helped us solve our homicide in the city. It has helped us recover a missing child. It has helped us recover missing people. It does help us recover stolen cars in time frames that actually have meaning,” he said.
In other words, the Charlottesville City Council looked at the data and saw that the system was reuniting families, solving heinous crimes, and returning stolen property to people, and decided that protecting illegal aliens from deportation was far more important than the safety of its residents.
Does it get any more blatant than that? Nobody is even trying to pretend that the city has decided to drop using the system for privacy or any other reasons. It all boils down to weighing the safety and security of the citizenry on the one hand, and helping illegal aliens defy the law on the other.
They chose the latter. Better that illegal aliens roam free, even if it means unsolved murders and children not being found quickly.
What's striking about the debate over using the Flock camera system is not that people are concerned that there are too many cameras in the city, creating a panopticon in which every move is recorded; in fact, the Charlottesville police department is looking for an alternative, and the city just contracted with a company to run some parking garages that use cameras as part of the payment system.
a company called Metropolis Technology, which uses AI technology to collect data on millions of people, just took over our two city parking garages.
“…residents and visitors will be able to enjoy an easy experience where their vehicle becomes their parking pass,” the announcement eerily declared. “Metropolis technology will handle the rest, eliminating wait times and equipment failures.”
While the plan for this was discussed at a Charlottesville City Council meeting in June, there was no vote or public discussion, and it went unreported by the local media. SP Plus, the company that managed and ran the garages, was acquired by Metropolis Technology last year and was switching to its new system. Last week, signs went up in the garages reminding long-term parkers to sign up with Metropolis, and there was apparently a Q&A session on Wednesday at CitySpace, but few people seemed to be aware that the change was taking place.
“I’ll be interested to see how this works in practice,” wrote planning commissioner Rory Stolzenburg in response to the news, wondering if there would still be gates. And if so, would people who didn’t register get stuck there?
“Yes, there will be gates and an attendant will be available at the exit gate to assist if needed,” says city economic development director Chris Engel, who briefed council on the plan in June. The system can also handle parking validation and accommodate those taking advantage of free parking hours, but people still need to sign up and/or hand over their license plate and credit card information. Many of those questions are answered on the “how it works” page that the city put up for the new system.
So the problem is not that people are being recorded or that the city will be collecting reams of data—nobody on the City Council seems to have any problem at all with that, even if, in the process, more data is collected and more inconvenience is imposed on some residents.
It all boils down to ensuring that the city obstructs the enforcement of our immigration laws as much as is humanly possible.
I always rolled my eyes when liberals would moan about "the rule of law," "norms," and all the rest when talking about Trump, but now that the president is back in office, they aren't even trying to hide the fact that, in their eyes, the rules only apply when they want them to.
"Nobody is above the law." Except if they are breaking the law in whatever the left considers a good cause. The "but her emails" crowd turns around and prosecutes Trump over classified documents, and defends James Comey for leaking classified documents. The people who defended Biden as "sharp as a tack" are now shouting that Trump is feeble and senile.
And now, a city council has decided that solving murders and reuniting children with their families is all well and good, but when compared to saving an illegal alien gang member from being deported, it's nothing.
To top it all off, you can be certain that the residents of Charlottesville will clap like trained seals at this decision, secure in the knowledge that their virtue signaling makes the sacrifice in safety worthwhile.
Charlottesville is, after all, a university town.
- Editor’s Note: The mainstream media isn't interested in the facts; they're only interested in attacking the president. Help us continue to get to the bottom of stories like the Jeffrey Epstein files by supporting our truth-seeking journalism today.
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