A former Sarasota police officer is facing felony and misdemeanor charges after department investigators say he ran a single Florida license plate through the city's Flock camera network 358 times over roughly five months, with no active case tying him to the vehicle. Cory Waiters, who had worked for the Sarasota Police Department since 2023, was fired and arrested on Wednesday following an internal affairs and criminal investigation into his use of law enforcement-only search databases.
According to an arrest affidavit reported by Your Observer, Waiters queried the plate between May 14, 2025, and October 4, 2025, logging the searches under the reason “suspicious vehicle” even though no case file was assigned to either of the two vehicles registered to that tag, a 2025 Land Rover SUV and a 2016 Infiniti SUV. Sarasota police say Waiters allegedly misused both the DAVID and Flock law enforcement-only search databases, and he now faces two felony charges and one misdemeanor charge, including an offense involving computers, computer systems, networks or electronic devices, official misconduct, and a violation of Florida's public records law, according to WPEC. He was booked into the Sarasota County Jail following his arrest.
A Tip From a Reporter, Not an Internal Alarm
The Sarasota Police Department learned on August 6 that Waiters had allegedly misused the databases, and it placed him on paid administrative leave the next day while launching an agency-wide audit of database use. Notably, that internal probe wasn't triggered by an automated compliance flag inside the system — it began after a USA Today reporter emailed the department in early August asking about more than 335 searches Waiters had conducted, visible on a publicly accessible log of license-plate queries, according to reporting from WFLA and the same Your Observer report cited earlier.
Investigators developed probable cause in the criminal case, according to the department, and the agency-wide audit was completed on August 14. Police said that broader review found agency-wide compliance beyond Waiters' conduct. The department has not provided additional details about how the databases were allegedly misused, and it has not identified anyone whose information may have been accessed.
Chief Vows Accountability as Charges Move Forward
Sarasota Police Chief Rex Troche said the department takes allegations of misconduct seriously and will address the actions of agency members that fall short of expected standards and professionalism. Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact Detective Kim Laster of the department's criminal investigations division at 941-263-6827.
The Sarasota Police Department's use of Flock technology traces back to January 2025, when the Sarasota City Commission unanimously approved a two-year, $339,250 contract with Flock Group Inc. to expand the department's license plate reader network in support of its Real-Time Operations Center, as reported by Your Observer. That contract covered hardware, software subscriptions, and analyst staffing for round-the-clock monitoring — infrastructure now at the center of questions about how easily an officer could allegedly run unsanctioned searches for months without detection.
Part of a Wider Florida Pattern
Waiters' arrest is not an isolated case. Just a week earlier, Haines City Police Department officer Christopher Goodson was arrested after an internal audit found he used Flock cameras more than 700 times over nearly two years to track his estranged wife's car, according to FOX 13 Tampa Bay. In July, Sumter County Sheriff's Office Detective Brandy Almany was arrested and terminated after an audit revealed she entered fake case numbers into Flock and state databases to spy on her husband's ex-wife, a case that prompted the sheriff to temporarily suspend the agency's entire Flock system, as Hoodline previously reported.
A national study released in April by the Institute for Justice documented dozens of similar incidents across multiple states in which officers improperly accessed license plate reader networks to track romantic partners, spouses, and exes, spanning agencies in Florida, Georgia, Texas, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Nationwide, Flock Safety now operates more than 120,000 automated license plate reader cameras across over 5,000 communities in 49 states, according to Lexipol, creating a searchable national database accessible to tens of thousands of officers without a warrant.
Political Fallout and a Legal Framework Already on the Books
The Sarasota case has already drawn national political attention. U.S. Representative Greg Steube cited Waiters' arrest to reinforce his “Block the Flock” campaign, arguing on X that giving government agencies AI tracking capabilities leads to inevitable personal abuse, according to Floridian Press. Florida gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds has separately called for a statewide pause on Flock camera deployment this year, per the same outlet.
Misuse of confidential law enforcement databases already carries legal consequences in Florida. Under legislation passed in 2021, civil penalties for government employees who misuse confidential electronic databases were quadrupled to $2,000, and mandatory annual database training was required for sworn officers under Florida Statute 943.17191, according to Florida Senate records. That law followed a 10 Investigates (WTSP) report finding that more than 900 Florida state and local government employees were caught misusing the state's DAVID database between 2015 and 2020, often to look up romantic partners or personal acquaintances — a pattern that includes the high-profile case of former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg.
