A city council discussion about whether Richmond should turn its license plate cameras back on pitted public safety reformers against tough-on-crime neighborhood leaders, including some from nearby East Bay cities.
The Flock automated license plate reader (ALPR) system was taken offline late last year after Police Chief Timothy Simmons discovered that a back-end software feature left the data potentially accessible via a “national lookup” capability, creating a reciprocal data-sharing arrangement that meant outside agencies could access Richmond’s data — a violation of city policy and California law. (Police have no evidence that any data was shared, they’ve said.)
Flock’s contract with Richmond has expanded significantly since the council first approved a three-year, $249,600 agreement in February 2023 for 30 ALPR cameras. Subsequent amendments added 70 more ALPR cameras, 40 CCTV cameras, a mobile surveillance trailer, a drone program and cameras for the Port of Richmond and other city facilities. A January 2025 amendment approved a contract of more than $2 million.
Though the ALPR cameras were turned off, the city’s CCTV and other Flock equipment remain in use.
One notable proposed amendment to the Flock contract would require the company to pay the city a fine of $290,000 if there is an unauthorized breach of its license plate data. In December, Oaklandside reported that the company agreed to pay Oakland $200,000 if it violated the city’s data-sharing policies. The Oakland City Council ultimately approved a $2 million contract with the company.
However on Tuesday the Richmond City Council delayed its vote after dozens of speakers spoke about the issue, running up against he council’s mandated 11 p.m. adjournment.
The council chambers were filled with Flock supporters, including: Point Richmond and Iron Triangle neighborhood council presidents Phillip Rosenthal and Oscar Garcia; mayoral hopeful Ahmad Anderson; Richmond police union president and Sgt. Ben Therriault; and members of the East Bay Alliance for Public Safety, an apparent offshoot of an Oakland-based organization bearing the same name and similar logo.
Opponents of the camera system included Reimagine Richmond, a local public safety reform group, members of the Asia Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Action.
At the last minute District 2 council member Cesar Zepeda, who is up for reelection in the June primary, attempted unsuccessfully to continue the meeting until Wednesday morning at an undisclosed “time that would be good for everybody.” Only council members Jamelia Brown and Soheila Bana supported him.
The public comment, at times, saw tense moments of speakers positioning their signs to be seen on camera.
Earlier on Tuesday, both the East Bay Alliance for Public Safety and Reimagine Richmond sent out emails calling for supporters to attend the council meeting to speak. More than 50 speakers chimed in.
Edward Escobar, who identified himself as the founder of Coalition for Community Engagement and the Citizens United Movement, said he was part of the recalls of former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and former Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price and compared Richmond to other cities he has seen reach a “breaking point.”
“It’s chaos and people are paying for it with their lives,” Escobar told the council. “And while the violence keeps escalating you’re still debating whether to use tools that other cities already rely on to stop violent offenders. Automated license plate reader systems aren’t experimental. They are not controversial anywhere except places that refuse to face reality. They work.”
However, Richmond has seen a historic plunge in homicides in the last decade, reaching a record low in 2025 with just six. Though overall violent crime decreased from 1,446 incidents in 2024 to 1,208 in 2025, some crimes, such as sexual assaults have increased in recent years. There were 139 reported sexual assaults in 2025, up from 81 in 2021.
Others, however, questioned why the council would continue to do business with Flock which has come under scrutiny nationwide for data breaching concerns.
“The thing is you can’t say you don’t support ICE and support Flock. The thing is Flock in our jurisdiction doesn’t support immigration enforcement but in other jurisdictions they do,” said Ryan Kazen, a Richmond resident and teacher with local nonprofit The Practice Space. “You are giving your money to a company that does support immigration enforcement. It might not be here but it is in other places. My question then is this, if you want residents to be safe and people to be able to retrieve their stolen cars, at the least, can we find another option that is not Flock?”
Police chief says vehicle thefts up about 33% since cameras were shut off
Simmons is asking the council to reinstate the license plate reader system, arguing that vehicle thefts have increased roughly 33% since the cameras were shut down.
He also referred to a current trafficking case involving a missing minor. Her phone, Simmons said, was showing she was in Richmond with a known trafficking suspect but, due to the Flock system being off, they’re having a harder time finding her.
“I believe we are still looking for this young lady,” Simmons said. “If we had this technology up and running right now we would know exactly where that car is right now. That’s the reality of what some of this technology brings to the table.”
Flock’s current contract with Richmond expired on Feb. 28. The city has 96 of the offline ALPR cameras and 65 CCTV cameras deployed.
The department’s drone program, which is also operated through Flock Safety, Simmons added, allows police operators to deploy autonomous drones that can reach a scene in less than 90 seconds, flying up to 60 mph at altitudes of up to 400 feet.
The chief said his preferred option is for the city to extend the contract through Dec. 31 and reactivate its 96 ALPR cameras alongside the existing closed-circuit television and drone programs, with a requirement that the full program be reevaluated by the end of the year.
Another option would be to continue only the CCTV and drone programs while the department explores alternative license plate reader vendors.
According to Simmons, since the ALPR system was installed in March 2023, the technology has helped the department make 274 arrests, recover 259 stolen vehicles and 41 license plates and assist with 911 criminal cases.
Flock makes changes while some Bay Area cities cancel contracts
Flock Safety has reportedly since made several changes to address the data compliance issues. The company disabled the national lookup feature for all California agencies in March 2025, blocked out-of-state agencies from creating data-sharing agreements with California departments in June 2025 and updated its system statewide in July 2025 to automatically flag and block search terms such as “immigration” to comply with California’s sanctuary laws.
In recent months, a number of cities around California, such as Santa Cruz, Mountain View and Los Altos Hills, have parted ways with Flock due to data sharing concerns while other cities, such as Oakland and San Francisco, locally, kept their contracts with the company.
“I understand that Flock Safety and the technology that they manufacture can be polarizing and controversial. Conversations about surveillance, privacy and government authority are deeply personal and, at times, are emotional,” Simmons said. “Those concerns are real and they deserve respect and, as a police chief in this city, I take them very seriously.”
Simmons said that the ALPR system stores the license plate data for up to 30 days using encrypted cloud storage and is connected to the Department of Justice’s Stolen Vehicle System and the National Crime Information Center. He added that there is no evidence that Richmond’s data was accessed or used for investigative purposes by outside agencies though he also noted that Richmond shares ALPR data only with the El Cerrito Police Department, which it provides dispatch and records services for as part of a “longstanding” contract.
Recently, El Cerrito police came under scrutiny after an East Bay Times article detailed that an audit revealed a number of federal agencies had access to its Flock license plate data.
In a statement released to the publication last week, El Cerrito police said the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the GSA Office of the Inspector General, and the National Parks Service all were able to search license plate photographs that were taken in the city. The department said the data was accessed between June and August 2023, when the cameras were first installed. After that, El Cerrito police took “administrative control.”
Richmondside reached out to Simmons Wednesday to ask whether Richmond residents’ data might have been shared by way of El Cerrito’s system but did not hear back by publication time.
As the meeting ended late Tuesday District 1 council member Jamelia Brown criticized her colleagues who voted against finishing the meeting this morning, pointing to the urgent need presented in the sex trafficking case.
“With the last 60 seconds, I would like to highlight that we have a young person who is being trafficked and whose phone is pinging in our city and this is what we chose to do,” Brown said.
