After overflow crowd protests Flock cameras, city council to take up issue at July 28 meeting

By Megan Cullins, contributor

A policy about what to do with the Flock cameras in Harrisonburg and license plate reading cameras will be on the city council agenda July 28.

This comes after people filled the council chambers at the start of Tuesday’s public hearing portion of the meeting. Fire Chief Matthew Tobia said in addition to those inside city hall, about 150 more people were waiting outside the council chambers to protest the Flock cameras.

Flock cameras, produced by the Atlanta-based Flock Safety company, are used in Harrisonburg to detect license plates and vehicles. Law enforcement  data is used by law enforcement to solve crimes, track stolen vehicles and search for wanted or missing persons.

Deflock is a group that has been protesting automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras. People across the country also have crowdsourced the locations of such cameras in their communities. 

“ALPRs track your movements and store your data for long periods of time, creating a detailed record of your location history,” according to the Delflock website.

Harrisonburg keeps the footage from Flock cameras for 21 days and there are 31 cameras in the city.

Before opening the floor for public comment on Tuesday, the council addressed the public response to the Flock cameras.

“I want to thank you all who have met with us individually, who have schooled us on a lot of the information that we need to know to understand what ALPRs are,” said council member Monica Robinson.

Many community members spoke in front of the council to thank the council for listening to their concerns and discussing potentially ending the contract with Flock Safety, as other Virginia communities like Staunton have done. They also shared concerns about other potential mass surveillance in Harrisonburg, sang protest songs and read poems.

Some residents said that they don’t believe it’s enough to just cancel the Flock contract and that a more comprehensive ordinance needs to be put into place to prevent other forms of mass surveillance in Harrisonburg.

Other residents expressed disappointment in the council for allowing Flock in the first place and entering into a contract without knowing the risks.

“We shouldn’t have had to school you in the way that we have been told we did today,” said one resident.

Two community members read letters and statements written by others, including an immigrant who didn’t feel safe to come to the meeting.

Chris Hoover, the executive director for New Bridges Immigrant Resource Center, said that the surge in ICE has created fear among many immigrants and their families. That if he were ICE, Flock would be a very beneficial tool especially if placed where immigrants are known to congregate.

“Decisions around immigration enforcement in this country are nearly entirely out of our hands, but this is one decision we can make locally, and one tool that we can take away from ICE,” Hoover said.

Another community member who values law enforcement and has friends and family in that field spoke against the cameras.

“As a Christian, as a conservative I value personal liberty and I feel like this technology is eroding away the trust between law enforcement,” said the resident.

After the public hearing ended, Reed said it is difficult to hear how the community talks about law enforcement. She said she might disagree with the devices used, but she respects the effort that the police put in to keep the community safe.

For instance, some residents had expressed concern over one of the police’s community engagement initiatives that involves officers knocking on people’s doors to speak with them.

Reed encouraged people to talk with Harrisonburg Police Chief Joe Tucker about any such concerns.

“He will meet with anyone. But you have to be willing to meet with him, and so if you’re not doing it, that’s on you,” Reed said.

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