Drivers along Taylor Drive and Washington Avenue in Sheboygan have started noticing something odd: the city's license plate cameras are wrapped in plastic, lenses obscured, no longer scanning traffic. City officials confirmed all 15 of Sheboygan's Flock Safety cameras have now been covered, and police leadership is asking the Common Council to terminate the contract entirely at its meeting on September 8.
Sheboygan Police Chief Kurt Zempel and City Administrator Casey Bradley will formally present that termination request next month, according to Seehafer News. The cameras, installed in Sheboygan in 2024, are automated license plate readers that capture plates to help solve crimes, but city leaders say Flock Safety's own conduct — not just public unease — is driving the push to cut ties. As reported by WISN, city leaders say the police department became aware in July of actions by Flock Safety believed to be inconsistent with the city's contract and expectations, though officials have declined to specify exactly what the company did wrong ahead of the council meeting.
A Chief Weighs Trust Over Technology
City officials also declined an interview with WISN's 12 News on the matter, per the same report, leaving residents largely in the dark about what triggered the sudden reversal. Zempel has said strong internal controls and community trust are vital for systems involving powerful technology or sensitive information, and separately noted that trust must extend to the partners providing those services — a comment that reads as a pointed message to Flock Safety itself rather than to Sheboygan's own officers. Zempel and Bradley are pushing for the city's contract with Flock Safety to be terminated outright, according to WISN's reporting.
Not every resident is upset to see the cameras go dark. Zoe Pease told WISN that covering the cameras is the right step toward getting rid of them, while Cathy Davis said the devices make her feel constantly watched and leave no privacy while driving, adding that their use has exceeded the original need to find criminals.
Sheboygan Joins a Statewide Reckoning
Sheboygan's move fits a pattern rippling across Wisconsin throughout 2026, as trust in Flock Safety's safeguards has eroded amid a string of officer misuse cases. A former Menasha police officer, Cristian Morales, was sentenced this month to six months in jail and three years of probation after pleading no contest to running unauthorized Flock searches across the nationwide camera network to stalk an ex-girlfriend, according to the Wisconsin Examiner. Investigators found Morales conducted seven off-duty search sessions that reached between 15,000 and 92,000 cameras across Flock's system.
Milwaukee has faced its own reckoning. A police detective in the department's Internal Affairs unit, Tehranghi Chapman, was charged in July with misconduct in public office for allegedly running 20 unauthorized Flock searches — inside the very unit tasked with investigating another officer who had pleaded guilty to using Flock to stalk a partner, per the ACLU of Wisconsin. Milwaukee police subsequently slashed officer access to the Flock database from 370 officers down to just 100. Hoodline has previously covered the fallout in Milwaukee's Flock misuse scandal and a related case involving Racine officers.
A Domino Effect Across the State
Sheboygan's physical camera-covering tactic echoes moves already made elsewhere in Wisconsin. Dane County's Board of Supervisors voted 32–1 in April to defund and terminate its Flock contract, and sheriff's deputies later covered 26 rural cameras with bags in May after the company failed to promptly remove the hardware, citing Fourth Amendment concerns and unverified third-party data sharing. Verona set an earlier precedent in November 2025, bagging its three cameras in black plastic after learning out-of-state officers had accessed local camera data on behalf of federal immigration enforcement, according to reporting from Bolts, which noted Flock ignored requests to remove the equipment for months after cancellation.
The exits have created a shrinking network effect in the Fox Valley region. Kaukauna terminated its own six-camera contract in July, with Police Chief Jamie Graff pointing to cancellations by neighboring Appleton, Oshkosh, Grand Chute and Sturgeon Bay as reducing the shared value of the regional system, according to WTAQ. Appleton Mayor Jake Woodford had already moved to cancel that city's contract in May, citing a breakdown in trust over system-wide vulnerabilities and data misuse by outside police departments beyond local control. Hoodline previously reported on Oshkosh's one-year Flock renewal fight and on a Brookfield traffic stop tied to an outdated Flock alert.
Flock Responds With New Safeguards
Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based company founded in 2017, operates automated license plate readers across more than 5,000 communities in 49 states and processes over 20 billion vehicle scans every month, according to Business Insider. Facing mounting scrutiny, the company announced nationwide policy changes on August 13, including shortening default license plate data retention from 30 days to seven days and mandating search audit codes for law enforcement users, with existing clients given until the end of 2026 to adopt the audit features.
Public interest in the issue has also spiked. A records lookup tool called Have I Been Flocked? surged in popularity this month, drawing up to 60,000 unique visitors every two hours as drivers checked whether police agencies had queried their license plates, per Business Insider's reporting. It remains unclear whether Sheboygan will attempt to replace Flock with a competing license plate reader vendor or abandon automated plate readers altogether, and city officials have not yet detailed the exact nature of Flock's alleged contract violation ahead of the September 8 vote.
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