Pearland police revealed that their Flock Safety camera database was searched more than 903,000 times in a single month, and 61% of those searches came from agencies outside Texas entirely. The numbers, covering the period from August 10 to September 10, were released after city council members pressed the department for answers about how its 112 license plate readers were actually being used.
According to ABC13 Houston, Texas law enforcement agencies accounted for just 16% of the searches, while Houston-area departments made up roughly 9%. The rest came from elsewhere in the country, with out-of-state agencies conducting the majority of queries against Pearland's database. The sheer volume echoes a similar controversy in Lucas County, Ohio, where officials raised concerns after their own database logged more than 904,000 searches in a single month this year, according to the same report.
Nationwide Search Feature Under Fire
Pearland disabled Flock's nationwide search option on September 15, cutting off the feature that let outside agencies search databases belonging to every other department opted into the network, per ABC13's reporting. The Harris County Sheriff's Office had said at the time that the nationwide search tool was likely responsible for driving the high search volume in the first place. Disabling it marks a direct response to the kind of unchecked cross-jurisdictional access that has become the flashpoint in Flock debates statewide.
Pearland police adopted the camera system in 2022 and credit it with helping recover 57% of all stolen vehicles the department has located since then, per the same ABC13 account. Separately, KHOU 11 reported that automated alerts from Pearland's 112 cameras have contributed to 326 arrests over a four-year span, a track record the department points to as justification for keeping the system running even as it scales back outside access.
Neighboring Cities Split on Flock's Future
Pearland is hardly alone in wrestling with the technology. A number of Texas cities have voted on ending Flock camera use in recent months, with outcomes going in opposite directions. Manvel's city council voted unanimously in September to decommission its cameras, and Community Impact reported that the city also cut funding for the Flock contract heading into fiscal year 2026-27, with the mayor arguing that private surveillance networks had expanded beyond what the city originally approved.
League City voters will decide the fate of that city's 55 cameras in a binding ballot measure this November, after the city council voted on October 13 to make the referendum binding by resolution; a no vote would force decommissioning within 72 hours, as Hoodline previously reported. Not every city is moving to pull the plug, though — Conroe and Liberty both voted to renew or continue their existing Flock contracts, underscoring how divided Texas municipalities remain on the issue.
State and Federal Pressure Mounts
The Pearland numbers land amid a broader statewide retreat from Flock funding. The Texas Tribune reported an October ban on state grant spending for Flock cameras by Texas Comptroller Glenn Huffines. An August order from Governor Greg Abbott froze state funding for Flock cameras, and the Texas Department of Transportation suspended installation permits. More than 900 cameras had gone dark following funding cuts and contract terminations.
Misuse scandals elsewhere in the Houston region have also fueled the backlash. In Fort Bend County, a former Katy police officer was indicted in April on felony stalking and misuse-of-public-information charges after allegedly running his department's Flock system more than 2,300 times to monitor his ex-wife, according to the law firm Reagen E. Thomas Law. Texas City police separately disciplined two employees in September after an internal audit found a dispatcher had run 42 unauthorized searches on a family member's vehicle, KPRC 2 reported, prompting the department to restrict access and mandate monthly audits.
