Racine County Sheriff orders Flock removal, lieutenant speaks to FOX6

You heard in Brian's report, the Racine County Sheriff ordered the removal of all flat cameras and joining us live to talk about that decision is Lieutenant Michael Luell with the Racine County Sheriff's Office. Thank you for joining us. You welcome. Thank you for having me. So walk us through the timeline of how we got to today to this decision to remove the cameras. We first learned about the situation in Sheboygan late last week. That obviously caused us concerns because it demonstrated a business relationship that we did not believe we were a part of. We contacted our corporation council and outside council. We believe that flock leaders doing things outside of the contract that was not in the public's trust and it violated the public's privacy. Therefore, we immediately took down the cameras late this morning and into the afternoon. And that's an important point. I just wanted to focus in on because I think a lot of people that are anti flock lieutenant seem to believe that they just don't trust flock. They don't believe that these cameras are just taking pictures of license plates. They believe their privacy is being invaded. So the question I would ask is, did they did anything in the contracts that the Racine County Sheriff's Office signed indicate that this would happen? Or is it truly a surprise to uh, you know, agencies such as yourself that this was in fact happening perhaps the entire time? The agreement we thought we entered into was that the data that was produced was the sole possession of the Racine County Sheriff's Office and that we had a retention period of 30 days. And the stance we take on this data is that we don't look at it. It's in a cloud and only if there's legitimate law enforcement purpose, then we pierce that cloud and we take out that limited amount of data via the homicide suspect, some suspect that's committed a different crime and we use that data to solve the crime. What we learned from Sheboygan in our own research is for some reason, flock is retaining data that is scrubbed of some of its identifiers for up to five years. And our contract, I believe, stated they were not going to share that information with other parties, but they're advertising on their website that they're willing to sell this to other businesses and agencies. That's absolutely not what we agreed to. So we ended our business relationship immediately. And this may be something that still is being sorted out the contract with flock. If you take the cameras down, is the county still on the hook for that contract? The remainder of that contract? That's an issue that the attorneys are gonna have to deal with. But from the sheriff's perspective, from the sheriff's office perspective, uh, the public trust is so much more important than however many dollars might be on the line here. I think flock is in serious and has serious problems right now. But we have a duty to serve and protect the community. Alpers is a tremendous tool to help us do that. But we're not going to put public trust at risk. And the last question I have for you is kind of a two part one, Lieutenant. First, do we know exactly how many cameras that your agency had and brought down? But then also, as we just heard from our investigator, Brian Polson, neighbors to your south and Kenosha are turning to different technologies. That's something that your agency will do as well. We have a total of 10 cameras that were taken down. We shut down our flock program completely, and we canceled any sharing ability with law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. As far as any Alpers technology in the future, I can guarantee there's gonna be a much stronger vetting process. A legal eye is really gonna be taken upon these contracts. I don't know when we may enter into a new agreement. It's a wonderful police tool to help us ensure public safety. But today was day one to stopping the abuse of flock. Lieutenant Lowell, thank you so much for joining us. Fox six News at five. I know this is developing for your department as well, and you're sorting things out, and we do appreciate you just taking the time and sharing this with us and the public. Thank you. Have a good weekend. You too.