Texas City Police have tightened access to their network of automated license plate readers after an internal review turned up two instances of possible misuse — one involving a civilian employee who has already been disciplined, and another involving a police sergeant whose case remains under investigation. The changes cut the number of employees who can run searches on the system by roughly two-thirds, and every remaining search now requires a documented reason.
Two Cases, Two Different Outcomes
According to click2houston.com, the department launched its policy review at the direction of Interim Chief James Patterson earlier this summer. That review identified two possible instances of misuse of the Flock camera network. The first involved a civilian employee, and disciplinary action was taken as a result. The second case, involving a Texas City police sergeant, is still being investigated, the outlet reported.
The department has not released details about what either employee is accused of doing with the system, and the outcome of the sergeant's case has not been determined. The station's report does not identify either individual by name or specify when the alleged misuse occurred.
Who Can Still Run a Search
Search access to the automated license plate reader system is now limited to Texas City Police Department detectives and the department's supervisors, per the same account. That single change decreased the number of users with search access by approximately two-thirds, according to the report. Anyone who still has access must complete three separate justification fields before running a search, including a case number and a specific reason for the query.
Texas City Police also plan to conduct a monthly audit of all users with access to the system going forward, the outlet noted. The city currently operates 26 stationary license plate readers along with two deployable units that can be moved as needed, and the technology has been in use in Texas City since 2023.
Part Of A Wider Industry Reckoning
The tightened rules in Texas City arrive as Flock Safety, the company behind the camera network, rolls out its own guardrails nationwide. As reported by fox13news.com, the company is now requiring all of its law-enforcement customers to use its Audit Assistance tool, which is designed to flag potentially abusive searches. Flock also plans to require a case code tying every search to a criminal investigation, with emergency searches automatically flagged for review, and is shortening its default license-plate image retention period from 30 days down to seven. Users flagged for potential misuse will be automatically locked out of the system while their activity is reviewed, fox13news.com reported.
Scrutiny of how police departments use Flock's technology has intensified elsewhere in Texas this year. In Kingsville, officer Gabriel Garcia resigned in July on the same day the department confronted him over records showing he allegedly queried the Flock camera database nearly 5,300 times for personal use, according to texasscorecard.com. Audit logs cited in that report showed Garcia's 5,283 searches dwarfed the 3,477 combined searches logged by 26 other department members. Kingsville police records stated that the readers are meant for official law-enforcement needs only, not unauthorized use, and the investigation there concluded on August 28 with a recorded disciplinary outcome of indefinite suspension.
Texas City's overhaul does not resolve the open sergeant investigation, and department officials have not said when that case will be finished. What has changed, for now, is who can look up a license plate in the first place — and how much they have to explain before they do.
