Put down Covington as yet another city across the nation where people are damaging Flock Safety cameras, reportedly in protest to the surveillance that captures license plates of vehicles traveling through town.
“We have had the majority of our cameras damaged or destroyed over the last two months,” said Covington Police Chief Adam Easterbrook, in an Aug. 28 email about the city’s eight cameras.
Easterbrook knows it’s been a trend in many cities.
“There is a large social media campaign to damage or destroy the cameras,” he said. “They are advocating people destroy the cameras to prevent surveillance and misuse by the government.”
Covington Police have caught suspects.
“We have made an arrest of juveniles who damaged one of our cameras,” Easterbrook said. “We are still waiting for the cost for repair before we submit charges. We are waiting because we do not want to submit felony charges when it should be a misdemeanor.”
Social media led to a lead in a separate case.
“There was another incident where the vandals posted themselves damaging the cameras on social media that we are still investigating,” Easterbrook said.
According to an Aug. 27 forbes.com article, residents are taking matters into their own hands in many cities. At least 25 of the 650 Flock cameras in Dallas, Texas have been vandalized. Similar incidents were reported in Detroit, Michigan and Savannah, Georgia.
Forbes reports people have been charged in Florida and Michigan with felonies for damaging the cameras because of their high cost. The article reported “How-to” videos online show people how to disable the cameras while others choose to smash or rip them down.
Easterbrook said Flock, based in Atlanta, Georgia, has made changes and added auditing tools to prevent misuse because of the controversies about the use of the cameras.
“The auditing tools alert administration of potential issues, such as running the same search multiple times over a long period of time and running the same search in a very short window of time to name the most common alerts,” he said. “One of the reasons you are hearing about misuse by police officers is the auditing tools and the alerts sent by Flock. Intentional misuse is a gross misdemeanor in Washington state which was recently added by the state Legislature.”
The Renton City Council has paused use of the Flock cameras in its city. Several Auburn residents have told their City Council to remove the cameras, but no action has been taken. City councils sign contracts with Flock Safety and decide whether to keep using them.
Easterbrook said the cameras have helped solve crimes in Covington.
“The benefits of the camera for law enforcement are they add another tool to provide evidence and alert us to stolen cars when they go through our cameras,” he said.
Easterbrook said the most notable arrest Flock cameras made on a case in Covington was for a robbery and shooting at a BECU ATM.
“We obtained an image of the getaway car used in the incident, but it did not have a license plate visible,” he said. “The car did have damage and went through (the city of) Kent’s camera. We compared the damage to the image in Kent’s camera and we then had a license plate which is a valuable lead.”
The chief said the camera does not show people so they still had a lot of work to do. He said the King County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit used some good detective work to identify the suspects and then arrest them.
“That piece of evidence was vital to this case,” he said. “There are several other crimes we have solved with assistance from the evidence gained from our and other agencies cameras.”
The city of Covington contracts with the King County Sheriff’s Office for police services.
According to forbes.com, civil liberties organizations, privacy advocates, legal scholars, and local activist groups argue Flock cameras, and others like them, are an invasive violation of privacy that threaten Americans’ fundamental rights.
Easterbrook said crime rates have gone down in the city since the city launched the Flock camera system in 2024.
“Crime rates have a lot of factors that feed in them but it does seem Flock has had a part to play in the reduction we have seen in the last couple of years,” he said. “Auto theft, which is the most common alert we receive from Flock, has seen a significant reduction.”
The number of auto thefts hit 125 in 2023, 99 in 2024 and then dropped to 55 in 2025 and just 19 through July 2026, according to Covington Police stats.
Burglaries and robberies also have dropped, Easterbrook said. Burglaries dropped from 112 in 2023 to 57 in 2024, 52 in 2025 and to 17 through July 2026. Robberies dropped from 22 in 2023 to 13 in 2024, 7 in 2025 and only 2 through July 2026.
“We operate these cameras at the direction of the City Council,” Easterbrook said. “They have been very valuable for the Police Department in solving crime.”
