As Arizona Cities Rethink Flock, Police Access Extends to 192 Home Depot Cameras
EXCLUSIVE: New reporting reveals law enforcement access to private Flock cameras and how deep that access could reach into Arizona neighborhoods.
Avondale Mayor Mike Pineda held a Facebook Live Q&A with Police Chief Memo Espinoza on July 30th to talk about a technology that has generated questions locally and nationally… Flock cameras.
The discussion, aimed at answering residents’ questions, raised new ones… including how far police access extends beyond the city’s own cameras.
Statements made in the Q&A led to a follow-up conversation with Avondale Police. Department staff, and Neighborhood Resource Officer Jaret Redfearn, were generous with their time, answering additional questions for Jen’s Two Cents and helping clarify what that access actually looks like.
And one answer, in particular, is where this story starts:
Avondale Police have ongoing access to 192 Flock license plate reader cameras operated at Home Depot stores across Arizona.
Home Depot’s Relationship with Avondale Police
The public-private, data-sharing relationship surfaced during the July 30th Facebook Live Q&A between Avondale Mayor Mike Pineda and Police Chief Memo Espinoza.
During the discussion, the police chief explained that some large retailers operate their own Flock systems and share access with law enforcement.
The mayor specifically raised Home Depot.
“So, in the event, Home Depot to be specific, in this example, have a Flock camera on their property,” Pineda said.
What the Q&A didn’t reveal was the scale of that access.
It’s not just one camera. Nor one Home Depot.
APD later confirmed to Jen’s Two Cents that 192 Home Depot cameras across Arizona are accessible to Avondale Police.
While Chief Espinoza confirmed Home Depot uses the technology for retail theft and loss prevention, he emphasized that the retailer’s license plate readers are privately funded by the retailer.
“We have nothing to do with it.”
Avondale may not own the cameras, but its officers can search the data those cameras collect.
According to Espinoza, that sharing relationship goes one way:
“They share the data with us. But we don’t share the data — our data — with them.”
Officers don’t have to ask Home Depot each time they want to search them.
Officer Jaret Redfearn said the access is ongoing.
“Access to the Home Depot cameras is ongoing; however, as with any Flock search, any Flock ALPR cameras that are searched require a valid law enforcement reason and report number for search purposes.”
When searching the Flock system, APD says the same department rules apply regardless of who owns the camera, whether an officer searches:
A city-owned Flock camera
A Flock camera owned by another Arizona law enforcement agency
A privately owned Flock camera made available to Avondale Police
Officer Redfearn said:
“Any search on Flock, whether it is from an Arizona law enforcement agency Flock system or a privately owned system, requires a crime type and departmental report number to be applied. This is a requirement per our policy.”
Important: Who owns the cameras and who can search them are two different things. Law enforcement doesn’t have to own a Flock camera to search its data. A private entity can grant an agency access to its system.
Agreements between Private and Public Flock Camera Owners
Jen’s Two Cents asked Avondale Police whether any written agreement, memorandum of understanding, contract or other policy governs the sharing of privately collected Flock data with the department.
Despite the ongoing access, Officer Jaret Redfearn said there is no memorandum of understanding or contract governing Avondale Police’s access to Home Depot’s Flock cameras or the privately operated cameras belonging to an Avondale homeowners association.
“No, there are no memorandums of understanding or contracts governing the sharing of Flock data gathered by Roosevelt Park HOA or Home Depot. We submit a request for access, and those entities either grant it or not.”
In other words, according to APD, the department requests access and the private camera owner decides whether to grant it.
Once that access is granted, APD says its own policies govern how officers use the data.
“Our employees' access and utilization of the data is governed by the same policies and procedures as our internal Flock Safety ALPR data.”
When asked whether any other retailers or private businesses currently provide Flock access to Avondale Police, Redfearn answered:
“None other than Home Depot.”
Avondale isn’t an outlier here. As of August 16, 2026, it appears alongside 61 other law enforcement agencies and organizations granted access to University of Arizona Campus Police Flock data, including the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Northern Arizona University Campus Police and the 1Pinal County Attorney’s Office.
And that’s just one agency’s sharing network. It offers a glimpse into the range of partnerships that can be available to law enforcement through Flock, not the full scope of Avondale’s access.
In a previous Jen’s Two Cents exclusive investigation, public records showed Avondale participated in a shared network of 62 in-state partners, with 54 agencies able to access Avondale’s system earlier this year.
Home Depot Responds
Jen’s Two Cents asked Home Depot about its law enforcement sharing practices. Spokesperson Emma Garcia responded:
Notably, the statement addresses federal law enforcement, but does not answer how many state or local agencies have access.
Garcia also pointed to Home Depot’s published ALPR policy, which says the company generally does not allow third-party access but makes exceptions that include “cooperating with law enforcement related to enforcement of laws and regulations.”
We may collect and use ALPR Information for fraud prevention, security, and asset protection purposes (“Authorized Purpose”).
Select associates and independent contractors with an Authorized Purpose, including, those in our security, asset protection, information technology, and legal departments (“Authorized Personnel”) will be authorized to use or access the ALPR System or collect ALPR Information. Select asset protection associates are responsible for implementing this ALPR Usage and Privacy Policy. Authorized Personnel will undergo training on the appropriate access and use of ALPR Systems and ALPR Information in compliance with applicable privacy and security laws.
Home Depot Website | 8.15.2026
Home Depot and Avondale Police also follow different timelines for how long ALPR data is retained.
Avondale says its Flock data is retained for 30 days, unless preserved as evidence.
Home Depot’s policy does not specify the same 30-day limit. Instead, it says ALPR information is retained “for as long as necessary” for authorized purposes and regularly destroyed when retention is no longer necessary.
“To ensure the security of ALPR Information and our compliance with applicable privacy and security laws, we will maintain and periodically check our ALPR System access records.”
Home Depot Website | 8.15.2026
Avondale’s 30-day retention limit applies to the city’s own Flock data. It does not require a private camera owner, such as Home Depot, to follow the same timeline. A retailer can retain the data it collects under its own policy, which may be longer than 30 days.
Police Department Access to HOA Flock Cameras
According to Redfearn, Home Depot is not the department’s only source of privately operated cameras.
Chief Espinoza said during the July 30th Q&A that some neighborhoods and homeowners associations operate Flock cameras at community entrances and exits and can share that data with police.
“There are neighborhoods or HOA’s within our city that they have Flock cameras outside of their entrance and exit to their communities. I should point out they share the data with us. But we do not share data with them.”
Espinoza did not identify the neighborhoods during the Facebook Live or say how many privately operated neighborhood cameras Avondale Police could access.
Jen’s Two Cents asked APD for clarification.
Officer Redfearn said one HOA currently provides access: Roosevelt Park HOA, where Avondale Police can access four privately operated Flock cameras.
When asked whether Avondale determines what residents are told about law enforcement access to those privately operated cameras, Redfearn said it does not.
“The HOA would handle that aspect.”
The discussion between the mayor and chief led to a broader question during the Q&A: Could Flock cameras someday be installed inside Avondale neighborhoods?
Mayor Pineda expressed uncertainty about bringing the technology closer to individual homes.
“I don’t know how I would feel with a Flock camera actually in my neighborhood watching the coming and going. I shouldn’t say ‘watching’ — but observing the information that it captures.”
It’s not the first time Pineda has wrestled publicly with cameras, technology and privacy.
During a May 2022 discussion over speed and red-light cameras, Pineda suggested the public had become more comfortable with camera technology:
“I think that, for me, the pushback is going to be less than what it is…
I think the community has gotten used to this type of thing. A lot of people have Ring doorbells. They have their own cameras on their house. They understand how this technology works more than they did back then. The technology has matured.”
But there’s an important difference: A homeowner chooses whether to put a Ring camera on their property. Government-operated cameras don’t come with that individual choice.
By September 2025, during Avondale’s debate over its separate ALPR photo-radar program, Pineda was weighing privacy and civil-liberty concerns alongside labor costs and long-term accident trends that he said “are not improving.
In November 2025, the City Council voted 5-2 to terminate its ALPR speed-camera program.
Fast forward to a March 2026 presentation and the conversation looked different. Council members strongly supported using ALPR police technology to help address staffing shortages, praising proposed expansions of Flock cameras and Drone as First Responder technology.
But how close should that technology get to home?
Asked about Flock cameras throughout residential communities last month, Chief Espinoza said he doesn’t envision them lining neighborhood streets.
“I really don’t believe so.”
But he identified community entrances and exits as one potential location.
“Getting into the communities… maybe, ah, at the entrance and exit of the communities would be a great idea. But outside of that, I do not see us, at least us here in Avondale, doing that.”
City Leaders, Flock Cameras, and Neighborhoods
The question of how close license plate readers should get to people’s homes is not limited to Avondale.
Earlier this month, Jen’s Two Cents first reported comments from Prescott Mayor Cathey Rusing supporting Flock cameras in residential communities.
“As a woman, I feel safer knowing a community has them.”
Rusing went further, pointing to the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie in the Tucson foothills:
“If Nancy Guthrie’s neighborhood in the Tucson foothills had Flock, the kidnapper would be behind bars.”
Jen’s Two Cents asked Mayor Rusing to clarify what she considers an appropriate level of ALPR deployment in Prescott, including whether she supports cameras at major entrances and exits, throughout residential neighborhoods, or somewhere in between. We also asked where she draws the line between public safety and the number of cameras deployed. Mayor Rusing had not responded as of publication.
Police Policy for Searching the Flock System
Mayor Pineda says, “Our policies that have been put into place were created so well that they may even want to be replicated in other cities. Is that correct?
Chief Espinoza answers:
“That is correct. We work with our attorneys, our legal advisors. We drafted a policy that we believed was very solid. And we’ve been asked to share that policy with other agencies. Again, because of the restrictions and the safeguards to ensure that data from the Flock system is only utilized for investigative purposes.”
Officers must provide an authorized law enforcement purpose, crime type and department report number.
No court order is required to search where a license plate has been detected by Flock or other automated license plate reader technology, known as ALPR.
A warrant is not required under Avondale’s policy to conduct a Flock search. That’s consistent with the dozens of Flock policies Jen’s Two Cents has reviewed across Arizona.
But the growing scale of warrantless ALPR searches is fueling a broader Fourth Amendment debate across the country over when a network becomes so extensive that tracking a vehicle’s movements could amount to a constitutional search.
In a previous Jen’s Two Cents exclusive investigation, public records showed a single Flock query made by Avondale Police could reach across as many as 178 networks and 4,409 cameras at once.
Avondale wasn’t the largest. Not even in the Top 10.
The same investigation ranked the Top 10 largest searches, with Show Low Police topping the list. One search reached 6,204 networks and 95,897 cameras.
One search. Thousands of networks. Tens of thousands of cameras.
Read the full report: Scale of the System.
Proactive Auditing and Cities Terminating Flock Contracts
In April, Flock rolled out enhanced proactive auditing tools designed to give agencies greater visibility into user activity and flag unusual searches or potential anomalies, including officers intentionally searching for family members in violation of department policy.
Those audits are already uncovering problems in Arizona. But cities are responding very differently.
Apache Junction and Goodyear Police disclosed anomalies in their systems last week. Neither has announced plans to terminate its Flock contract.
Chandler has taken a different route. On August 7th, the city announced it was discontinuing Flock and terminating its access to the system. Chandler Police has since disappeared as a sharing partner from some Flock transparency portals reviewed by Jen’s Two Cents.
Surprise suspended its ALPR system after an audit flagged a potential policy violation, but has not announced that it is terminating Flock. Surprise still appears as an agency granted access in several Flock transparency portals, raising a separate question: Are its officers still accessing vehicle location data shared by other Flock partners while its own system is suspended?
That’s a story Jen’s Two Cents will be sharing later today.
So, will more departments come forward as agencies dig deeper into their own audit logs?
Flock CEO Garrett Langley says yes.
As scrutiny intensified, Flock CEO Garrett Langley responded directly to a Jen’s Two Cents’ post on X.
Asked whether we should expect to see more questionable searches uncovered as agencies begin using the new auditing tools, Langley responded to me:
“Yes, we will see more and I think every police technology should have the same auditing.”
Then he added:
“Abuse of power destroys trust.”
Cities can ditch Flock for another ALPR company. But Langley argues changing vendors doesn’t solve the accountability problem. He wants the same proactive auditing standards applied across police technology, not just Flock.
Goodyear Police Chief Brian Issitt framed the issue in similar terms:
“The public trusts us with powerful law enforcement tools, and that trust requires both strong policies and meaningful oversight.”
Goodyear Police also identified an anomaly through its auditing process. But unlike cities moving away from Flock, Goodyear tells me it is sticking with the technology.
Assistant to Goodyear Mayor Joe Pizzillo, Janet Hidalgo:
“At this time, the City has no plans to terminate its agreement with Flock or suspend the use of this technology.”
The city called what it found an “isolated incident” involving one of approximately 200 authorized users and said it remains confident in its safeguards.
“The City continues to believe that ALPR technology provides significant value in supporting public safety and law enforcement efforts.”
Avondale Safeguards for Flock Searches
Avondale Police conduct audits, too.
Mayor Pineda also raised privacy concerns during the July Facebook Q&A.
Chief Espinoza described Avondale’s policy as “very restrictive.”
He said officers and employees searching for a vehicle must provide a report number and reason for using the system. He also said the department conducts audits to ensure those requirements are followed.
When Pineda asked what would happen if the system were misused, Espinoza said searches must be conducted to solve crimes and for an authorized purpose. Personal use could result in “corrective action,” he said.
Espinoza also said Flock data is retained for 30 days.
“After the 30 days, that data is completely gone.”
He clarified that information connected to a criminal investigation can be extracted and preserved as evidence. Otherwise, he said, the data is automatically deleted after 30 days.
How Avondale says it uses Flock
Avondale’s Q&A neighborhood discussion was part of a broader conversation between Pineda and Espinoza about how Avondale uses the technology.
For residents unfamiliar with the system, Pineda asked what Flock cameras are — and what they are not.
Espinoza said the cameras capture license plates and images of vehicles, including characteristics such as make, model and color. He said Avondale does not use the system for facial recognition.
Pineda then raised a question he said came from his son: What problem is Avondale trying to address with the technology?
“Crime in general,” Espinoza answered.
It’s a point the city has made before. Earlier this year, Avondale Police described license plate readers to Jen’s Two Cents as one tool among many available to law enforcement.
Officer Daniel Benavidez said:
During the Facebook live, the chief described Flock as an investigative tool and gave an example involving an armed robbery. Police had descriptions of the suspect and vehicle, he said, and used the approximate time of the crime and camera information from near the incident to identify a vehicle, develop a lead and ultimately make an arrest.
Espinoza said Flock can also assist with investigations involving theft, shoplifting, missing people and kidnappings.
As Jen’s Two Cents reported previously, Avondale currently operates 15 taxpayer-funded city cameras, with funding approved for another 58, which would bring the city’s own system to 73 cameras once installation is complete.
As for where those 58 new cameras will go, Mayor Pineda and Chief Espinoza encouraged residents to be part of that conversation.
An Investigative Tool Among Many
Department leadership has repeatedly described Flock as an investigative tool rather than a system for actively following vehicles.
During a March City Council discussion, Espinoza said:
“In Avondale, we simply utilize them for the purpose as an investigative tool for our officers or detectives. We do not use them to chase cars around or anything like that.”
During the July Facebook Live, Espinoza also addressed concerns about “mission creep.”
“We don’t want to grow that system into something else.”
He said he does not foresee Avondale expanding the system to perform other functions.
Mayor Pineda acknowledged that residents may have different views of the technology and described a scenario in which someone skeptical of Flock could later benefit from it during a burglary or vehicle theft investigation.
Avondale’s Sharing Policy Getting Revamped
During the July discussion, Espinoza said Avondale shares its own Flock data with specific agencies within Arizona.
“With Avondale’s system, we don’t share that data with outside agencies. We just share the data with specific agencies just within our state.”
Espinoza also said Avondale does not share its data with federal agencies.
Avondale’s written Flock policy addresses a separate form of access: searches beyond the statewide network.
The policy directs officers to use Flock’s “Statewide Lookup,” while a “National Lookup” requires approval from a lieutenant or higher.
But Redfearn told Jen’s Two Cents that APD has since determined its system does not allow Avondale personnel to conduct those nationwide searches directly.
“Our policy is currently being revamped regarding this aspect, as we have found that we cannot query any out of state/national look ups as a result of our policy only allowing access to in-state searches only.”
Redfearn said the department is aware of one nationwide query that was authorized, which he said occurred when APD discovered the limitation.
“Any out-of-state or national lookups would be facilitated by an agency that has access to it. To our knowledge, there has been one nationwide query that was authorized, but that was when we discovered that only Arizona law enforcement agencies can be queried.”
If a nationwide search is warranted now, Redfearn said Avondale would have to contact another agency with that capability.
“As far as National Lookups are concerned, Avondale Police personnel cannot do these types of searches. If one is warranted, we would reach out to an agency that has those capabilities.”
Avondale’s Audits of Outside Agencies Accessing its ALPR System
Jen’s Two Cents also asked whether Avondale can see when another law enforcement agency searches its Flock cameras.
Redfearn said it can.
“All law enforcement agencies that we share access to our Flock system with are Arizona law enforcement agencies. They can query our Flock cameras just as we can with theirs. We are able to review and audit other agencies that have queried our system.”
According to Redfearn, Chief Espinoza approves each Arizona law-enforcement agency that requests access to Avondale’s camera system and can revoke that access.
“Our chief of police approves each Arizona law enforcement agency that requests access to our camera system. Additionally, the chief of police can revoke access to any agency at any time.”
That answer provides a clear picture of how Avondale says it governs access to its own cameras.
WATCH: The July 30th Q&A discussion
Jen’s Two Cents has posted the full July 30 public discussion to YouTube, including timestamps and the topics covered.
The response to the Facebook Live Q&A were largely positive, with residents thanking city leaders for explaining the technology and answering questions about how it works.
Police Chief Espinoza encouraged residents with questions or concerns to review Avondale’s ALPR policy and said he is willing to discuss how the technology is used.
Jen’s Two Cents requested that conversation. However, staff said Espinoza “is not available for an interview on this topic.”
Mayor Pineda has also been invited to continue the conversation on the Jen’s Two Cents podcast.
A special ‘thank you’ to Neighborhood Resource Officer Jaret Redfearn for taking the time to answer our follow-up questions and provide additional information for this report.
Read previous statements from the Pinal County Attorney’s Office about its use of Flock and the need to balance investigative tools with civil liberties here: “A First-of-Its-Kind Government Mass Surveillance Proposal” and “Too Intrusive: Pinal County Sheriff Announces Plan to End Flock Contract”.