CHIPPEWA FALLS — Officials from Flock Safety Cameras met with the Chippewa Falls public safety committee on Monday, showing the potential benefits of having their surveillance cameras placed along busy traffic corridors in the city.
Trevor Chandler, a San Francisco-based Flock lobbyist, said they now have 1,300 employees and have cameras in more than 5,000 municipalities. The cameras capture images of license plates and enter them into a national database. Police have used them for everything from tracking stolen cars to locating missing and kidnapped individuals.
“We take care of the cameras. If we upgrade the cameras, you don’t have those costs,” Chandler told the committee. “We don’t have facial recognition, and these are not ticketing cameras.”
Chandler said that courts have consistently ruled that recording images of the exterior of the car, and particularly a license plate, is legal and doesn’t violate Fourth Amendment rights to privacy.
Cities can customize how they want to use the cameras, he added.
“We store the data but it is 100% owned by you,” Chandler said.
Flock generally keeps video for 30 days. An officer can download a video and image at any point in that 30-day period and retain it for investigative purposes.
Chandler showed recent news headlines from cases in Wisconsin where Flock camera footage led to arrests, from Rice Lake to Kenosha.
“You can choose to share with cities across the state, or choose to share only with the neighborhoods near you,” Chandler said.
Councilwoman Heather Martell noted that Wisconsin doesn’t have laws that detail data retention, and she wondered how Flock cameras fit into state rules. Chandler said they could adjust the length of how long the data is stored, but he reiterated that most municipalities have settled on 30 days.
Councilwoman Jody Marr asked about who has access to the data and if they have ever been hacked. Chandler said they’ve never been hacked, and the only people who have access to the data from Chippewa Falls is the city; it will not be shared with any other municipality.
Marr also asked if a warrant is needed to look at the data; Chandler said that isn’t needed or required.
Councilman Scott Sullivan told Chandler how his vehicle was stolen while he was living in Colorado and it was quickly retrieved because that city has Flock cameras, so he knows they are successful.
“I think the most important thing is the policy, and how we’ll manage this,” Sullivan said to Chandler. “Who has the best practices for this policy? Instead of creating one on our one, it would be great to look at a half-dozen cities that have a policy.”
Chandler said he would submit some of those policies from other communities.
Martell thinks the city shouldn’t move forward on them right now out of fear of Fourth Amendment issues; she pointed to a lawsuit in another state and said the city should wait until that case is resolved. Sullivan disagreed, saying the cameras have so much potential for helping provide safety. He said if the Fourth Amendment issues had merit, other cities would have stopped using them by now. Martell said she also wants to hear from the city attorney on some of her concerns.
The committee eventually agreed to hold a public hearing on the topic to hear from constituents and their concerns. City Clerk Bridget Givens said she will look at scheduling it immediately after a City Council meeting.
Even though Chippewa Falls hasn’t had Flock cameras, Chief Ryan Douglas said they are familiar with the technology and have seen how they work and how they have helped resolve issues.
“We were able to get a hold of other agencies and they were able to do us favors,” Douglas told the committee.
In one case, there was a kidnapping at an area campground, and Flock cameras helped locate the suspect and resolve the case, he said.
“It’s one success story that started in Chippewa,” Douglas said.
Douglas said he is hopeful of getting six to 10 of the cameras that would be placed along major transportation corridors in city limits. He said he has a tentative list of where 10 cameras could be placed on busier streets in city limits.
Flock cameras have been credited with the arrest of Jose E. Dominguez-Garcia, who killed his pregnant ex-girlfriend and left her body in a suitcase in the Town of Wheaton in July 2020. Dominguez-Garcia was arrested in a suburb of Kansas City, Mo., in November 2023 after a Flock camera recognized he was driving a stolen vehicle. Dominguez-Garcia was sentenced last month to serve 25 years in prison.