Two Rivers Defends Its 12 Flock Cameras as Wisconsin Cities Bag Theirs

Two Rivers officials are defending the city's network of 12 Flock Safety license plate readers after a citizen petition demanded the cameras be torn down, pointing to a string of solved crimes even as neighboring Wisconsin communities rip their own systems out. City and police leaders say the cameras have helped crack cases ranging from a $9,000 theft to arson, while acknowledging residents have legitimate questions about tracking, data sharing and cost.

The pushback traces to a petition launched on August 10 by a local resident calling for Manitowoc and Two Rivers officials to remove all 30 Flock cameras installed across the two communities, arguing residents were being subjected to unconsented daily tracking, according to the Change.org petition. In response, the city of Two Rivers and its police department addressed community concerns about privacy, data sharing, funding and use of the cameras, according to WTAQ. Officials said the city has pursued strategically located public safety cameras for more than 15 years and chose a targeted automated license plate reader approach rather than blanket surveillance cameras throughout the community.

Cases Officials Say the Cameras Helped Solve

Two Rivers police said the 12 cameras, positioned along major highway corridors and around Neshotah Beach, have assisted investigations involving arson, stolen vehicles, hit-and-runs, significant theft, endangered children, child abuse, juvenile runaways, drug activity, overdoses and homicides over the past year, per the same report. In one case, officers identified a suspect vehicle after a $9,000 theft and followed investigative leads to Milwaukee, where police recovered a significant amount of the stolen property after an arrest. In another, officers used a vehicle description and Flock data to locate a hit-and-run suspect vehicle within minutes.

The system also flagged a stolen vehicle leaving Two Rivers on Highway 310, allowing officers to return it to its owner after locating it. In a separate incident, Two Rivers police assisted Manitowoc County investigators in determining that a vehicle associated with a juvenile was last detected in the Sheboygan area, and Manitowoc County sheriff's deputies then stopped the alerted stolen vehicle on Interstate 43. Officials also said the cameras provided information that helped locate a suspect in an arson investigation.

The Elijah Vue Case Looms Over the Debate

Officials pointed to the case of Elijah Vue, the 3-year-old boy who disappeared from Two Rivers in February 2024, as an example of the investigative gaps that pushed the city toward expanding its camera network. The boy's skeletal remains were found by a hunter more than three miles from where he vanished, and child neglect and abuse charges remain pending against his mother and her boyfriend, with trials scheduled for 2027, according to FOX6 News Milwaukee. The disappearance triggered a months-long, multi-agency search across Manitowoc County, and officials say it demonstrated gaps in the city's existing camera infrastructure at the time.

Two Rivers officials said Flock access is limited to legitimate law enforcement purposes, and that officers do not continuously watch live video feeds of residents traveling around the community. The cameras are not facial-recognition devices identifying people inside vehicles, they said, but rather tools that identify vehicles and license plates. Officials also said the police department conducts monthly audits of the Flock system and searches, and that Two Rivers reduced its data retention period to seven days.

Costs and Budget Process

The initial Flock installation was included in the city's 2025 capital borrowing program, with an estimated cost of up to $10,000 that ultimately came in at about $5,300, officials said. The city budgeted approximately $18,000 for the initial annual Flock expense, which was charged to the police department's computer software operating account. Two Rivers officials said the funding was approved through the normal public budget process, which includes departmental review, committee and commission discussions, city council work sessions and final council consideration. The city has identified parks, public streets, public infrastructure and Neshotah Beach as potential future camera locations.

A Regional Backlash Against ALPR Networks

Two Rivers' defense of its cameras comes as several nearby Wisconsin communities have moved in the opposite direction. Officials in Sheboygan covered all 15 of the city's Flock cameras with bags while pushing to terminate its contract, joining Dane County and Verona in deactivating their ALPR networks, Sheboygan bagged all 15 cameras and reported that Dane County deputies had already bagged 26 rural cameras in May after voting 32-1 to end their contract. Oshkosh, Grand Chute, Sturgeon Bay and Appleton have also ended Flock services, while Green Bay has continued using the cameras.

Public trust in the technology has also been shaken by documented misuse elsewhere in the state. A Milwaukee Police Department Internal Affairs detective was charged with misconduct in public office in July for allegedly making 20 unauthorized Flock searches, prompting the department to cut officer access to the system from 370 users down to 100, the same report noted. A former Milwaukee police officer pleaded guilty to misconduct for using Flock to track his ex-girlfriend and was sentenced to probation and a fine, while a Menasha police officer was sentenced to six months in jail for using Flock to stalk an ex-girlfriend. A Florida officer was separately accused of using Flock cameras to track his estranged wife more than 700 times, and a Kenosha County sheriff's deputy was not charged after using Flock to track another deputy he was dating.

Not every flagged case has been clear-cut. Brookfield police pulled over a driver after a Flock camera flagged the car in connection with a Milwaukee homicide, only to determine the flagged driver was the wrong person. Flock Safety senior official Chris Davis said he supported the company's new product guidelines, which the vendor rolled out nationally on August 13, reducing its recommended default data retention period from 30 days to seven days and making audit flagging and search case-code entry mandatory for law enforcement clients by the end of 2026, according to the Associated Press.

Civil Liberties Groups Remain Skeptical

Not everyone is convinced the seven-day standard solves the underlying privacy problem. The ACLU published an analysis warning that Flock's new Evidence Mode feature could allow long-term retention of vehicle location data whenever a search is tagged with a case number, and the organization recommended a strict 48-hour maximum retention limit instead, according to the ACLU. The group argued that exceptions tied to active case numbers could undermine default retention caps if applied broadly.

Members of the U.S. Congress have also launched a bipartisan investigation into Flock Safety, demanding company records on data retention, cross-jurisdictional sharing and privacy safeguards across its 120,000 cameras nationwide, with lawmakers raising concerns about potential Fourth Amendment violations and unregulated data sharing, per the Person County Free Press. Separately, reporting revealed that Wisconsin law enforcement used Flock camera travel history across state lines to Michigan to help establish probable cause for searching a driver's vehicle for cannabis, according to 404 Media, a case that added to civil liberties warnings about pretextual surveillance.

How Two Rivers Compares to Its Neighbors

Public records in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Atlas of Surveillance database confirm Two Rivers operates 12 documented Flock cameras, a number the department has not disputed. Neighboring Manitowoc took a different approach to the same public pressure, launching an online Flock Camera transparency portal on August 21 that is updated daily with camera counts, search numbers and case success stories, according to Seehafer News. Manitowoc Police Chief John Musial said the portal was meant to counter false claims about live tracking and demographic profiling.

Two Rivers officials said they recognize residents have every right to ask questions about public-safety technology, and that the city will continue evaluating safeguards and policies as technology, laws and community expectations evolve. For now, the department is betting that its record of solved thefts, stolen vehicles and the shadow of the Elijah Vue case will outweigh the mass-surveillance concerns driving petitions and camera removals elsewhere in the state.