TOLEDO – Heated discussion on Flock Group, Inc.’s Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras dominated Toledo City Council’s agenda review at city hall on Tuesday, Oct. 13.
Public attendance
Members of Abriendo Puertas Para Soluciones (APPS), a nonprofit supporting immigrants, and an anti-Flock activist, Jessica Molina, posted across social media asking all who opposed the ALPR cameras to sit-in on the agenda review on Tuesday afternoon to show support for a resolution asking Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz to rescind the contracts with Flock.
“You do not have to speak or give public comment. Simply show up! More people in the room sends a clear message that our community is paying attention and cares about this issue,” Molina’s social media comment read.
Before the meeting began, Molina said, “I am out here because APPS has been working with or next to City Council for some time now, trying to get these Flock cameras to come to an end.”
Agenda reviews are generally empty meetings, but around 40 people showed up to quietly voice opposition to the surveillance system. Council Member At-Large Nick Komives made sure to acknowledge the guests to the meeting.
“…This room is generally not filled…when we have agenda review meetings, and it’s very clear that the public is concerned, I would say mostly about this issue [Flock], which is why they’re here.”
Message to the mayor
Resolution file name: TMP-12977, originally drafted on Oct. 9, will be voted on this coming Tuesday, Oct. 20, and requests the removal and deactivation of all Flock equipment, the deletion of Flock data and the termination/non-renewal of contracts with Flock Group, Inc.
Clear opposition came from District 2 Councilman Adam Martinez, who had previously put forth an ordinance, O-307-26, expanding Flock equipment in his district. After a September vote to audit the Flock system, his ordinance was tabled, pending the audit of the Flock system.
Martinez called the new resolution against Flock “political theater.”
“At the end of the day, we know where the mayor is going to stand on this, or at least, I presume we know where the mayor is going to stand. Even if this council is split, it doesn’t do anything,” he said.
A strong proponent of Flock cameras, George Sarantou, councilman at-large, echoed Martinez’s sentiments, and told his colleagues that last week, Kapszukiewicz assured Sarantou that he was in favor of “retaining and maintaining” the Flock system. Sarantou also quoted TPD Chief Mike Troendle, who warned of an uptick in crime if the contract with Flock was canceled.
In response to the Flock resolution, George Kral, chief of safety and internal services, spoke on behalf of the administration, and said halting the Flock system before the external audit of the Flock system was completed would be premature.
Regardless, Molina said, “The mayor, at this point in time, through our meetings with him, has mentioned that City Council has all of the power, so I think this resolution is really putting out there who actually has the power to end the contract.”
She added, “I think this is a mayoral dominant city.”
Divide in Council
Most members of Council did not rehash their opinions on Flock during the agenda review.
Five members, Komives, Brittany Jones (At-Large), Theresa Gadus (District 3), Mac Driscoll (At-Large) and Erin Kramer (At-Large), sponsored the resolution stopping the use of Flock.
And when asked if Komives even had the votes to make this resolution possible he said, “I’m counting right now on six votes ‘yes,’ and I am hopeful that a seventh vote will join us and listen to the public, truly, and do what the public is asking us to do.”
Driscoll and Sam Melden (District 5) both walked a more center line on the Flock discussion, with Driscoll outright supporting getting rid of Flock and Melden raising concerns.
Both councilmen brought up the issue of data security and AI usage as major concerns to moving forward with Flock, although Melden expressed a desire to review the usage of AI with other partners of the City of Toledo as well.
Driscoll concluded, “We’ve got to be very careful about what we’re collecting or what somebody else is collecting on our behalf,” and rejected the idea of using Flock.
Attendees erupted in applause following Driscoll’s remarks, and Vanice Williams, president of Council and representative for District 4, banged the gavel five times to interrupt attendees’ cheers.
“We don’t do that at agenda review,” she said and invited attendees to come to committee meetings, where that would be an appropriate response. Williams never spoke on the issue of Flock at the agenda review, but it was clear her patience was tried as someone trying to keep order and as an ardent supporter of Flock and police.
“Bias against Flock,” is how Martinez explained the national uproar against ALPR cameras, and pointed out that a gang intelligence software was approved unanimously without any second thoughts from Council or the public in August.
GangScope is the name of the software, purchased at $35,000 a year, which works as a database cataloguing information police departments have, specifically on gangs and gangmembers.
Information within GangScope includes names of gang members or suspects along with their photos, cars or other assets that have been part of investigations, and this information has been made searchable across departments.
There is no surveillance component to GangScope, only information curated by law enforcement in relation to gang activity and made available to the Toledo Police Department (TPD) for about 12 percent of the cost of the main annual Flock contract ($282,000).
Martinez later said that he would reevaluate his position on Flock if the audit brought back concerns, but without information telling him to doubt the system, he said he trusted the word of the TPD officers who had said there was no abuse of Flock in Toledo.
A matter of privacy
The main concern from those who were there to oppose Flock was not specifically abuse from within TPD, but a broader issue of privacy in general.
Local drag queen, entrepreneur and political figure David Gedert (Sugar Vermonte) was at the meeting as well.
“The Flock system that we have in Toledo, Ohio is a mass AI citizen surveillance system that no one voted on and no one agreed to. We all found out after the fact, and it’s a ‘no’ from me, and I think it’s a ‘no’ from a lot of citizens now that we know that it’s happening,” Gedert said.
Komives’ general point was that getting rid of Flock was the will of the people, and that the money used for Flock could be used more effectively in community policing (i.e. training), and hiring more officers for the force.
Molina said, going forward, people would be calling council members leading up to the vote on the 20th, and trying to meet with them to change their minds about the Flock system.
