“18,000 Cities to Go After”: How Flock’s Cameras Came to Arizona
Flock's CEO says people are angry and “need somewhere to point” and that backlash against his company is a “current thing” that will pass.
A recent video from a May 2026 Semafor event has surfaced showing Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley addressing the growing scrutiny surrounding his company’s surveillance cameras. It’s a development he describes as recent and one he expects will eventually subside.
“When you see a camera, it’s something to point at when you’re mad,” Langley said. “So I think the issue is that people don’t dislike my company, it’s that they are mad and they need somewhere to point.”
But public records I’ve obtained over the past several years, combined with recordings of city council and other public meetings, tell a more complete story.
Langley attributed the criticism, at least in part, to anger over the current federal administration.
“Because we didn’t have this problem two years ago. We didn’t have this problem a year ago,” Langley said. “This is a current thing and it’ll move past.”
There may be a simple explanation for why this wasn’t “a problem” a year ago.
In city after city, the public discussion came after the cameras.
Public records, city council meeting recordings and interviews I’ve gathered over the past several years document a recurring pattern: residents often didn’t begin questioning Flock cameras until months after contracts were signed, and only later learned the extent of the nationwide network their local law enforcement agencies could access.
Sedona resident Sandy Boyce explained this to me… a year ago.
“I started driving around 89A which is the main street. And I looked up over the intersections and there’s these cameras mounted, just looking down at us. All over,” is what Sandy Boyce told me in August 2025.
Records I’ve reviewed show Flock’s technology expanding across Arizona through agreements between the company and local law enforcement agencies, in some cases before the issue was publicly discussed by elected officials.
One example comes from Goodyear.
During a 2024 City Council work session, then-Councilmember Bill Stipp said he was unaware the city had already purchased Flock cameras.
“That’s an absolute shock to me that we have already purchased 16 of these,” Stipp said. “I can’t imagine in my wildest dreams that I skipped over a license plate reader without having a discussion with anybody about it.”
Goodyear’s then-interim Police Chief Art Miller confirmed during an April 2024 work session that the department purchased 16 Flock cameras and that three had already been installed before the City Council discussed the program. Miller, who is now a candidate for mayor in Peoria, answered council members’ questions about the deployment and indicated the department planned to expand the system.
“The more we have, the better,” Miller told council members. “In the proposed budget, I requested 25.”
During the Semafor event, the moderator asked Langley whether Flock Safety had considered partnering with the federal government.
“No,” Langley replied. “Because I think for us there’s 18,000 cities to go after. We got plenty of work to do.”
If Flock's strategy is to pursue 18,000 cities, municipal meeting recordings suggest direct engagement with local elected officials is part of that effort.
In Avondale, Councilmember Gloria Solorio said during a March 2026 City Council meeting that she had met personally with the Flock CEO.
“I was very fortunate to sit down with Garrett Langley himself, who is the founder and CEO of Flock Camera,” Solorio said during a council meeting. “There couldn’t be a more useful tool than that to hear. Because you always hear the misconception—what is it doing, facial recognition and whatnot. But it is not. It is a tool to specifically help you guys solve crimes faster, in real time...”
Flock’s footprint is already extensive. My latest investigation found Arizona law enforcement agencies had access to 6,204 Flock-connected networks across the United States, encompassing nearly 96,000 camera devices at the time the records were obtained in March 2026. As the company continues expanding into new communities, that number may now exceed 100,000 cameras.
Across the country, opposition to Flock cameras has become increasingly visible. In some communities, residents have organized to remove the cameras through local government. In others, cameras have been vandalized or cut down amid growing concerns over privacy and surveillance.
For now, Flock’s cameras are generally easy to spot as they are mounted on poles at intersections and neighborhood entrances.
But that visibility may not always be the case moving forward.
In an exclusive interview I conducted with a New York resident who has closely followed the technology’s evolution, I learned about a concept that could make future deployments far less noticeable. If adopted more broadly, the next generation of surveillance infrastructure may be designed to blend into the streetscape rather than stand out.
“If we get to that point,” Frankel said, “where these things are undetectable, and law enforcement is under no obligation to disclose where they are... that’s just a very frightening environment in which to live, I think.”
Josh Frankel, who has closely tracked the evolution of automated license plate reader technology, said the prospect of less-visible camera systems raises broader questions about transparency.
Back here in Arizona, two bills that would have established a legal framework for the use of automated license plate readers in Arizona while also placing regulations on the technology failed to advance during the 2026 legislative session.
Lawmakers and stakeholders tell me to watch for new proposals when the Legislature reconvenes in 2027.
In the meantime, public interest in Flock’s growing network continues to expand alongside the technology itself.
As more Arizona communities weigh the benefits of automated license plate readers against concerns over privacy and oversight, I’m reminded of a warning privacy advocate Naomi Brockwell shared during an interview more than a year ago.
“It’s about how willingly we sweep up every innocent person in society,” Brockwell said. “Allow a dossier to be created on them. Allow this reservoir of knowledge with the most intimate, personal details of their life, including their movements, their social graph, their daily habits, patterns, their predilections—whether it’s political, sexual, whatever it is. Are we okay with this profile just getting larger and larger and being built decades and decades in the hope that we might catch a bad guy?”
For years, I've investigated the rapid expansion of surveillance technology in Arizona… From Flock Safety's nationwide license plate reader network to Axon's connected public safety technologies and Verra Mobility's automated traffic enforcement cameras. They're different systems with different missions, but they've repeatedly raised the same questions: Who approved them? What safeguards are in place? And when did the public become aware they were being deployed?
If Langley is right that Flock still has “18,000 cities to go after,” then Arizona may offer a glimpse of what’s ahead. The timeline I’ve documented through years of public records requests tells a consistent story: in community after community, the public debate didn’t begin when Flock arrived.
It began when people realized it already had.
Jen’s Two Cents.
Arizona Sen. John Kavanagh posted a video on X last night inviting constituents to submit ideas for legislation they’d like to see introduced during the 2027 legislative session.
“If I think the bill is good policy, and I think I can get the bill passed, I’m more than happy to introduce legislation that constituents want. Even non-constituents. If it’s a good bill, let’s get it into the system.”
Whether it’s Sen. Kavanagh or the senator or representative who serves your district, now is the time to share your ideas. Lawmakers are already thinking ahead to bills that could be introduced when the Legislature reconvenes in January.
If there’s an issue you’ve been hoping to see addressed, don’t wait until session starts. Reach out now. This is when many legislators are looking for ideas from the people they represent.