Five former Albany Police Department officers are now facing criminal charges after state investigators say they repeatedly tapped into the city’s Flock Safety license plate reader system for reasons that had nothing to do with police work. The officers, identified as Tytianna Davis, Jade Jackson, Nicholas Richardson, Brittney Smith and Issac Whitus, were arrested on July 6 following an internal review that flagged unusual database queries in late June.
According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, an Albany Police Department audit showed the officers had accessed the Flock system "on multiple occasions" for non law enforcement reasons. The GBI says its investigation remains active and that, once finished, the file will be forwarded to the Dougherty Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office for review and any potential prosecution.
Local coverage by WALB lays out the specific counts each former officer is facing. Davis is charged with five counts of misuse of retained license plate data and one count of violating her oath of office. Jackson faces two misuse counts and one oath violation. Richardson is accused of 11 misuse counts along with an oath violation. Smith faces one misuse count and one oath violation, while Whitus is charged with two misuse counts and an oath violation. WALB reports that all five were booked into the Dougherty County Jail on July 6 and that the Albany Police Department has terminated their employment.
How the probe began
The whole case started inside APD, not at the GBI. Albany officials say a routine internal audit of officers’ use of the Flock system turned up irregular searches that did not appear tied to legitimate cases. That finding prompted the department to ask state agents to step in and take a closer look.
Albany City Manager Terrell Jacobs told the Albany Herald that the city’s audits are designed to make sure surveillance tools and the data they generate stay focused on public safety, not personal curiosity. Because department personnel were involved, he said, it was important to bring in an outside agency. Police Chief Michael Persley declined to offer details, citing the still open investigation, according to the Herald.
Not an outlier in Georgia
Albany is not the only department in Georgia wrestling with how officers use automated license plate readers, or ALPRs. Around the state, audits have sparked similar criminal cases after turning up what investigators say were personal lookups in systems that are supposed to be limited to bona fide law enforcement work.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has tracked a series of incidents and the broader debates they have fueled over surveillance, privacy and police accountability. More recently, coverage of a recent Augusta deputy arrest highlighted yet another case that surfaced only after an internal audit flagged questionable database activity. Civil liberties advocates and some prosecutors say those kinds of checks, and the charges that can follow, are quickly becoming key oversight tools.
Legal implications and what is next
Georgia law spells out how license plate data can be collected, stored and used. Under O.C.G.A. § 35-1-22, information captured by license plate readers is supposed to be kept and accessed solely for law enforcement purposes; using it improperly is itself a crime.
The separate accusation that the former officers violated their oaths of office falls under O.C.G.A. § 16-10-1, which can carry felony-level penalties if prosecutors decide to bring formal charges and can prove the case in court. For now, the GBI says its agents are still working the file, and the Dougherty Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office will decide on prosecution once it receives the completed investigative report. Local authorities have not yet announced any charges beyond those tied to the arrests.
What oversight advocates say
Vendors such as Flock often point to robust audit logs and software tools that can flag odd search patterns as a built-in safeguard. Critics counter that relying on internal checks alone is risky, especially when powerful databases can track where drivers have been and when.
In the wake of Albany’s case and others like it, privacy advocates are pushing for more frequent independent audits, shorter data retention windows and clearer, tighter rules on who can run a search and why. Anyone with additional information about the Albany investigation has been asked to contact the GBI Regional Investigative Office in Sylvester, according to reporting by FOX 5 Atlanta.
