Richmond’s Flock license plate reader system will be back online for seven months, a split city council decided late Tuesday night.
Council members Jamelia Brown, Soheila Bana, Cesar Zepeda and Doria Robinson approved the decision to extend the Georgia company’s contract while Richmond Progressive Alliance-affiliated council members Claudia Jimenez, Sue Wilson and Mayor Eduardo Martinez opposed it.
In November 2025 Richmond police Chief Timothy Simmons turned off the Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) after finding out that a national search feature made Richmond’s data accessible to outside agencies — a concern given recent heightened fears about federal immigration enforcement operations.
Richmond originally contracted with Flock for a $1-million-a-year service beginning in 2023 and, in January 2025, expanded the contract by $1 million to add drone technology and gunshot and tire screeching detection. The city also contracts with Flock for video surveillance services, such as cameras in public places, which do not compile data from the images and have remained online.
Sources close to the department said in December that a non-sworn employee was first notified by Flock in February 2025 that the sharing feature was active. That employee immediately had the feature disabled and reported it to a supervisor, who apparently retired without passing the information up the chain of command.
Tuesday night’s meeting mirrored the March 3 public discussion about the cameras, with more than a dozen pro- and anti-Flock attendees holding up signs. Half a dozen supporters were aligned with at least one Richmond business group and a trio of out-of-town public figures while about a dozen public safety reform advocates from Reimagine Richmond showed up to oppose the technology.
Flock ‘presents clear privacy concerns,’ opponents tell council
“We are disappointed to hear that tonight, the Richmond City Council voted to extend the city’s contract with Flock. Community organizations from across the county agree that Flock presents clear privacy concerns to our Richmond residents. Despite this, the City Council has decided to jeopardize the security and privacy of our residents under the guise of public safety,” said a statement from Reimagine Richmond sent to Richmondside. “Our data will continue to be collected and distributed by a company that violates our Sanctuary City ordinance.”
The council’s vote extends the Flock contract to Dec. 31, when it will be re-evaluated.
Initially, before Bana and Robinson voted Tuesday to turn the ALPR back on, they said they did not trust the company and questioned Lily Ho, Flock’s western region public affairs manager, who was at the meeting.
Bana asked about wording in the Flock contract and for any examples of Flocksharing data for urgent law enforcement requests.
Ho replied that the company would respond to the requests but would not “hand over data.”
“The language is in there (the contract) but, to be honest, I don’t believe we have received any requests,” Ho said.
When Bana suggested the city buy its own cloud space to store its data as a method of oversight, Eric Tam, Richmond police public safety technology supervisor, said that her idea was not “feasible” and would require an agreement with Amazon, which already provides Flock with its data storage cloud.
One of Vice Mayor Robinson’s biggest concerns was that Flock did not alert the city or the police department of the data vulnerabilities while the national search feature was on. According to Simmons, the two-way access to the city’s data was activated from when the cameras first came online in early 2023 until February 2025.
“I find it offensive that Flock allowed that national search feature to be deployed and did not inform us that that was happening knowing that we are a sanctuary city and knowing that was a big deal,” Robinson said. “You have to understand when you know your system you should have pointed that out and made it clear. To me, it was disingenuous and makes you a company that is not trustworthy.”
However, Robinson later questioned if keeping the cameras off was beneficial, given that a number of surrounding cities in west Contra Costa County have them. 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.
“It’s hard for me to understand how having a black-out space in Richmond, where people are traveling using all of these different systems, provides true security from this kind of surveillance, unless they only stay in their house in Richmond,” Robinson said, while adding that phones and other electronic devices and apps are tracking people. “If Richmond is a black hole, who is that going to look attractive to? And I worry about that and want to be honest about that. That if people know (the cameras are off) there will be a slower (police) response in Richmond.”
Progressive council members question crime stats
District 5 council member and Richmond Progressive Alliance member Sue Wilson asked Simmons why he didn’t know about the national search feature. Simmons said Flock’s onboarding process did not explain the implications of what that feature did.
“In the auditing system of the transparency portal (of the city), that information was not coming up as showing what it created. During our training at the onboarding time, which is something I’ve been dealing with Flock on, and I’ll tell you I was really upset with Flock about the onboarding process and training process at the beginning as to what these features do and how they work,” Simmons said. “We spent an inordinate amount of time making sure that we had a closed network.”
Wilson told Simmons that she wasn’t trying to embarrass him and said other cities are dealing with the same issues. Flock has been a controversial topic nationwide and the Bay Area. Cities including Santa Cruz, Mountain View and Los Altos Hills have dropped Flock for data sharing concerns while Oakland and San Francisco are keeping their contracts with the company.
“It’s happening to cities around the country because Flock is designed to deceive us into thinking our data is safe when it is not, in my opinion,” Wilson said, as a contingent of pro-Flock attendees began jeering her. “I think where we are different is that you (Simmons) have confidence that Flock has changed and I do not.”
Wilson also asked Simmons about the crime data that he shared at the March 3 council meeting. Simmons had said that auto thefts had risen by 33% since the decision was made to shut the cameras down.
The figure, Simmons said, is a year-to-date comparison between the start of 2026 and the first two months of 2025 which rose from 129 to 172.
According to police department crime statistics, Richmond had 256 vehicle thefts from December 2025 to February 2026. Comparatively, Richmond saw 213 vehicles stolen during that same period from 2024 to 2025.
In the three years prior to 2025, Richmond had 305 thefts during that same three-month period in 2021 to 2022; 251 thefts during that period from 2022 to 2023; and 335 thefts during that period in 2023 to 2024.
Simmons said that the department uses crime data to look at periods when certain crimes are more prevalent, to divert department resources and to make attempts to mitigate it.
Wilson, however, pushed back on Simmons’ linking of a vehicle theft increase to the deactivation of the Flock cameras. She pointed to two November figures, in both 2024 and 2025, 68 to 103 respectively, that she said could show a significant increase in thefts while the cameras were still on.
“To do a statistical analysis you can’t just cherry-pick the month that is your argument,” Wilson said, adding that she hopes the city does a statistical analysis to see how the Flock cameras directly impact crime.
Mayor asks if a pro-Flock supporter is paid by the company
Another point of Flock dissension among the progressives at the meeting was the presence of a trio of pro-Flock advocates who have frequented a number of recent city meetings, often voicing support for the company.
Tuan Ngo, Edward Escobar and Chris Moore, who were involved in the recall of former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, spoke in favor of Richmond restoring the cameras during the March 3 meeting and returned Tuesday night alongside 23rd Street Merchants president Oscar Garcia, a former Community Police Review Commission member who received funding from the Richmond Police Officers Association (RPOA) for his District 3 campaign in 2022 and is a vocal police supporter.
Escobar, who identified himself as the founder of Coalition for Community Engagement and the Citizens United Movement, said in the March 3 meeting that Richmond was in “chaos.”
“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,” he said.
Earlier that same day, the group had held a press conference on the steps of Richmond City Hall that was attended by Oakland mayoral candidate Brenda Grisham, an Oakland resident and business owner who lost a son to gun violence in 2010 and worked to recall former Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price.
During Tuesday night’s open forum, it was said that Escobar was being paid by Flock to be an advocate.
“I hope that the city council considers which speakers are actually from Richmond and are not in community with the residents here,” one speaker, who identified herself as Xochitl, said. “For example, and I’m going to say his name, Edward Escobar is on record on that radio station saying he’s paid by Flock to go around various cities to convince you all, elected officials, to go against your own constituents who are actually impacted by your decisions.”
The radio interview was a Feb. 11 spot that Escobar did with Spanish-language radio station La Raza 93.3 FM, a day after the Alameda County Board of Supervisors decided to delay its decision on Flock cameras.
During that interview, Escobar is asked if he is paid by Flock.
“Well, I’ll tell you what we do, for my time because I have to leave my other job, they do pay me for my time,” Escobar said in Spanish. “Look, this is something we’ve done for a while so it doesn’t have to do with anything.”
“But of course it does,” the interviewer replied.
“We have been fighting for public safety from the beginning,” Escobar continued. “And because this company is advocating for a contract, they have to support us. All of these companies and corporations should support public safety in the area of Alameda County, the city of Oakland and even to the state level.”
Later in the interview, Escobar said it was “fair” that the company would pay him to promote them.
On Tuesday, when Martinez asked Flock’s communications representative Ho if the group had a lobbyist and if they paid Escobar, she responded that they did have a lobbyist but denied paying Escobar.
“We do have a lobbyist in San Francisco,” Ho said. “I can tell you that we are not paying anybody to be here and what we heard in that public comment, those accusations were false.”
“I heard the broadcast myself. Either I’m hearing things or there is someone on the radio pretending to be Edward Escobar and lying,” Martinez replied. “This makes me trust you even less.”
“Flock is not paying that man,” Ho replied.
After the meeting ended, Escobar declined to speak to Richmondside about whether he is being paid by Flock.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Brenda Grisham worked to recall former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao but was corrected to reflect Grisham worked on the recall campaign of former Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price.
