A sixth Flock license-plate reader has been put out of service by vandals in Toledo, Ohio, in a span of about two months, according to authorities and local news reports cited by Breitbart News.
The most recent incident occurred on the city’s west end, where the pole supporting a camera and a solar panel appears to have been cleanly cut near the ground, Toledo station WTOL reported. Toledo police are investigating.
The run of damage stretches back to mid-August. According to police, three cameras were knocked down on the city’s east side during that period, and another was “pushed to the ground” over Labor Day weekend. Additional devices were taken out in Oregon, a Toledo suburb.
A Quarter-Million Residents, Roughly 350 Cameras
Toledo has about a quarter of a million residents, and the map maintained by the advocacy site DeFlock.org shows roughly 350 Flock cameras in use across the city and its adjoining suburbs.
By comparison, the Toledo Police Department operates more than 100 standard license-plate readers of its own. According to the department, the system captures a vehicle’s plate, physical characteristics, location, and the date and time the vehicle was recorded. Investigators can then search that data during criminal investigations. Police say the system does not use facial recognition and is not built to track people as they walk past a camera.
The vandalism in Toledo is unfolding against a broader political fight over Flock and similar systems. License-plate readers have become a bone of contention in states and municipalities nationwide, even as law enforcement credits them with helping solve serious crimes.
Pushback in Ohio, Florida, and Texas
In Columbus, Ohio, officials suspended the city’s Flock camera program during an investigation after an officer was accused of using the license-plate reader to search for the same plate 270 times without providing a specific reason.
The Florida Department of Transportation revoked local police departments’ authority to install license-plate reader cameras on state highways earlier this month, part of what Breitbart describes as a growing national backlash against surveillance camera makers.
In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott ordered all state agencies to stop funding local law enforcement’s Flock camera purchases and operations. Many Texas legislators voiced concern about what they described as the excessive use of electronic surveillance through the AI-driven Flock system.
Despite those controversies, surveillance camera systems have been credited with solving many crimes, including the kidnapping of children, which supporters point to as evidence of their value to investigators.
Privacy advocates, meanwhile, have launched DeFlock.org, an open-source website that relies on volunteer-provided data to track the number and locations of cameras and to publish a map of camera sites in cities across the country.
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2026/09/28/vandalism-of-flock-cameras-continues-in-toledo-ohio/