A former Whiteside County sheriff's sergeant is accused in a newly filed court petition of using automated license plate reader data to track down a woman she didn't personally know, searching for her vehicle 108 times over roughly six weeks before resigning from the department in October. The petition, filed in Bureau County Circuit Court, names Alexandria Deyo as the respondent in a request for a stalking no-contact order.
According to a report from KWQC, which is withholding the name of the person seeking the order, the petitioner says Deyo ran searches for their license plate through Flock camera databases 108 times between May 6 and June 14, 2025. Whiteside County Sheriff John Booker reportedly confirmed the dates, times and number of searches to the petitioner, according to the filing.
The petitioner's account, per the filing, describes being tipped off on October 11 that Deyo was using Flock to search for them. The next day, an unfamiliar TikTok account began following the petitioner; after accepting the follow request, the petitioner says they found videos of Deyo on the account and recognized her as a deputy, despite not personally knowing her. The petitioner then contacted Booker about the alleged searches, and Booker confirmed the petitioner had in fact been searched for in the Flock system, the filing states. The petition asks a judge to bar Deyo from any contact and to require her to stay at least 300 feet away.
Sheriff Moved to Fire Sergeant Before Resignation
The case traces back to September, when Booker's office opened an investigation into possible misuse of Flock data and placed a deputy on administrative leave without identifying the employee, according to KWQC's earlier reporting. By October, the sheriff's office confirmed a sergeant had accessed license plate reader data for personal reasons. As reported by Vandalia Radio, Booker said the internal probe showed the sergeant used the data for personal purposes, and he moved to terminate her — but she resigned before the disciplinary process was complete.
Booker has since referred the matter to Illinois State Police for further review, per Vandalia Radio's account. Deyo has not been charged with a crime. The sheriff's office does not own or operate Flock cameras itself; instead, as Shaw Local reported, its personnel had access to camera information maintained by other participating law enforcement agencies through the broader Flock network, which lets agencies search shared data to assist their own investigations.
Access Suspended, Policies Under Review
Booker has suspended Flock data access for all sheriff's office personnel while the department tightens its internal auditing procedures, according to the same Shaw Local report. The Flock system captures images of passing vehicles and records license plates, vehicle characteristics, locations and times — data that, as the outlet noted, has drawn scrutiny well beyond Whiteside County this year.
Shaw Local reported that several law enforcement officers across northern Illinois have been either charged or placed on leave over alleged Flock abuses, with the Will County Sheriff's Office and Channahon Police Department also suspending officers pending investigations into similar searches. In Chicago, police say they are auditing whether officers misused access to outside agencies' license plate reader systems, and the department has already cut access down to employees whose job duties require it, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. A draft CPD policy would require officers to document a legitimate law enforcement purpose for every query and would add monthly audits of searches, the Sun-Times reported.
Similar Cases Surfacing Nationwide
The Whiteside County case fits a pattern playing out elsewhere. In Baytown, Texas, former Detective Ken Pascual resigned during a department investigation into alleged misuse of the city's Flock system, and officials have said it will be up to the Harris County District Attorney's Office Public Integrity Division to decide whether he's charged, according to FOX 26 Houston. In San Diego, a sergeant searched Flock data on the personal vehicles of an officer under investigation and a domestic violence victim back in August 2025, and the department has since used its license plate reader program in internal investigations six times total, a police spokesperson told KPBS. A San Diego police union letter has since demanded the department stop using Flock for non-criminal administrative investigations and audit all prior use.
Pew Research Center notes there are more than 100,000 Flock cameras deployed across the United States, though the exact count varies by source, and the company has estimated its network helped with more than 1 million law enforcement investigations in 2025. Pew also points out that networked cameras paired with specialized software can reconstruct where a vehicle has traveled over days or weeks — the same kind of tracking capability now at the center of the Whiteside County allegations. An Illinois Secretary of State audit of a sample of 12 local agencies separately found that Flock lacked proper safeguards for data sharing, according to a statement from the Illinois Secretary of State's office.
