Hampton License-Plate Readers: Pause New Installations

Sep 9

16 min read

Pause additional camera installations in Hampton

Clarified September 9, 2026

I am calling for a pause on installing additional license-plate reader cameras in Hampton for now. I am not currently calling for existing cameras to be shut down or removed, but that should not be read as my full support for the technology. I am still evaluating it.

Hampton has made its position clear and answered many of my questions. Based on the answers I have received, access is limited to designated officers, and Hampton is following Virginia's rules. I acknowledge those answers, but I am not yet fully committed to the cameras.

My remaining concerns are direct: unauthorized tracking, the safety and privacy of women, how data is retained and shared, whether camera placement is fair and justified, and how misuse is detected and addressed. We should evaluate the evidence that these systems help solve crimes before adding more cameras.

I also do not trust the companies with access to this data, especially in light of the Flock CEO's public comments. I want clear, verifiable limits on company access and proof that those limits are enforced. My concerns apply to this technology across all vendors, not just Flock Safety.

Virginia law already restricts vendor access to agency-requested maintenance and quality assurance and requires limits on selling or sharing data. I recognize those protections. My concern is whether the companies can be trusted to honor them and how we verify that they do.

I make decisions based on facts, not knee-jerk reactions. The city's answers help inform my judgment, but my evaluation is still ongoing. For now, my position is to pause additional installations while I continue examining the benefits, privacy risks, company access to data and accountability. I have not made a final decision about my overall support for these cameras.

The September 1 recording below preserves my comments at that time. My current request is a pause on additional installations. My overall position on the cameras remains under review.

Recorded civic commentary • Original video published September 1, 2026 • Watch: 23 minutes

In this breakdown, I explain where I stand on license-plate readers: I support technology that helps solve crimes, but residents deserve clear rules, meaningful oversight and protection from misuse.

My position in the September 1 recording

“I'm not calling for flock cameras to come down. Not yet. I support technology when it truly helps solve crimes.”

That support comes with questions about access, misuse, camera placement and accountability. The video distinguishes my position from other speakers’ comments and examines both safety and privacy concerns.

Flock and other vendors: the same privacy standards

My concern is not limited to Flock Safety. Other companies offer the same kind of license-plate reader and surveillance technology. The standards I expect should apply to the technology and how it is used, regardless of the company selling it.

That means clear rules for placement, access, retention, sharing, oversight and accountability. This clarification accompanies the original recording; it is not part of the original transcript.

Watch: Flock cameras, safety and privacy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxe1eWpFmZA

Camera placement, data access and accountability

Hampton has provided answers about officer access and compliance with state rules. My continuing review focuses on the evidence of crime-solving benefits, justified camera placement, company access to data, enforcement of privacy protections and accountability for misuse. Those concerns should guide any decision to install additional cameras.

License-plate reader video transcript

Transcript from the video's captions, including quoted meeting remarks by other speakers. Caption wording and names may contain errors; the recording is the source.

READ THE FULL VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

I'm not calling for flock cameras to come down. Not yet. I support technology when it truly helps solve crimes. I want police to have tools that help find stolen cars, bring missing people home, and solve cases. But I am concerned about misuse. I am deeply concerned about women being tracked. And I am deeply concerned about where cameras are placed, where they are packed together and where they are not because the question becomes, can we be safe without quietly building a system that watches all of us with weak rules? That is where I stand. This is part of one of my eight plans. Security and privacy. It covers cameras, drones, AI, and new tech.

because we need useful tools, but they cannot get ahead of our rights. And before I make a final call on these cameras, I want you to see the facts that led me to where I stand right now with it. A Hampton resident named Alexander Shetta spoke at Hampton City Council about flock cameras. Listen to what he raised. >> The next speaker is Alexander Titan. And if I didn't pronounce it, please restate your name when you come up. >> Good evening. My name is Alexander Sheramed. 6 months ago, I spoke before you all to warn the city about its support for flock safety and the private surveillance resources. Now, to my knowledge, nothing's changed to indicate the the city or the municipal authority has changed their stance or done anything to further regulate the technology.

Uh, around the nation though, Flock has garnered a lot of significant negative press. So, if you haven't heard, I'd like to read you some of them. In North Carolina, a police officer used flock cameras and their technology to track her boyfriend's ex-wife. In Texas, a police officer used camera systems to search for a woman suspected of having an abortion. And in Missouri, just recently, like six days ago, a police officer used Flock camera systems to stalk his wife during their divorce. Now, the last time I was here, I asked for stricter supervision of the program and transparency from the police department about how they use our data. Now, I'm demanding their removal from the city and current contracts are immediately canled.

Let me be honest with you. I don't trust the police. Vice Mayor, you said on an interview last year, when you get the police behind you, get nervous. Me, too. I don't like it. And now I have a dozen cameras watching me on the way to work, to the grocery store, on the way home. Now, multiple city people before me have said crime is one of the top issues in our city. But you've also said no police on the street are going to fix it. We need community policing and people, not cameras on every corner. Has crime gone down? I know homicides have gone up. Now, Flux official stance on this is that their cameras don't have any security vulnerabilities.

They don't misuse collected data. And if you oppose their surveillance systems, you support crime or are a criminal yourself. Well, I'm here to talk about the facts. The average age on this council is 65. Do you guys not care about the technology? Do you not understand the implications of it? Hundreds of these cameras and microphones have been deployed across the Hampton roads. These devices present an unconstitutional breach of privacy to all the Hampton residents and the misuse of same or similar products across the US present an immediate urgency to reject this technology and condemn its support. Law-abiding citizen is just a label that they can take away and these cameras are a threat of that.

That's all I have. 1% from 2024 to 2025. Erders went from 13 to 18. So this tells us the crime picture is mixed. It does not tell us why it changed. His bigger point was about how much access these cameras give the government, how they can be used wrong, and what happens when someone outside the police department has to spot it first. Now, I want you to hear Hampton City Manager Mary Button's response. Then we can look at what the law says and what public records should let us check >> on that. So, we do look forward to offering a permit option. I'm I'm glad you referenced the uh special event permit book. I have too heard some complaints recently about some of our process and did find that everything that people said they didn't know is in the permit book, but that doesn't mean that it's easy for people and to the extent we can make it easier for people, we should strive to do so.

So, I welcome your suggestions and I'll be getting with my team to look at your suggestions and see what we might do. But I did want to let you we were already investigating the electronic permit process to make things easier for folks. Thank you so much. >> And then I will address the flock cameras. Um, we talked about this before. I won't go too long into it, but federal and state courts have ruled that the flock camera use is not unconstitutional. State law has further restrictions. We do follow all of those restrictions in Hampton. Um, while we can't provide specific case details because the cases are in the prosecution process, we have many cases, whether they are arson, weapon law violations, property crime apprehensions that have been um successfully concluded to the point of being able to make a probable cause arrest and proceed through the prosecution process by using those uh systems.

Um, I want to assure you that the data that is identified in an active investigation is the only data that is kept after the 21 days that are provided by state statute. We purge everything after that period of time unless we have pulled something for an active investigation which is permitted by the state code. We have processes in place to make sure that officers of the Hampton Police Division do not do what was described that other happens in other localities. Uh in terms of accessing the data, it is recorded who goes in. They have to have a purpose to go in. It has to be documented. We review those case files to see why people are going in and how are they using the information.

We take the commitment to privacy of our citizens very seriously and endeavor to make sure that no one has had unauthorized access. I can assure you that if Chief Weidman found someone to have unauthorized access, they would no longer be employed with the city. He takes that very seriously, as do I. I am not going to sit here and say that it couldn't happen. It obviously has happened elsewhere in the country, but we take very strict procedures and controls to u make sure that if someone ever tried to do that, we would catch it and we would deal with it very promptly. Uh so uh to date it is our position Chief Weidman's and myself that this is a very valuable tool that serves our community and we are not recommending changing it at this time in terms of the animal control issues.

>> All right. Now, who is Flock Safety? Right. Flock Safety makes license plate reader cameras. Police call them ALPR cameras. They can record a car's plate, the time it passed, and the place. That information can be searched and it can be put together in a network of cameras, which basically what that does is it can be put together to know everywhere you've been based on the cameras that read that license plate and what time and where. Virginia's current law says plate readers data must be deleted after 21 days unless it is kept for an open case. The search log lasts two years. Each department must keep search records and check its use at least once every 30 days.

All right. [snorts] The state also says police must post their policy and a yearly report that reports is supposed to show how many cameras they own, how many searches they made, which other agencies can get access to these cameras, and any misuse they found. That is Virginia's rule. It is not the rule in every state. And legal is not the only question. Right? People still have a right to ask how a camera system is used and where it is put. Now, Flock says more than 6,000 towns and cities use its system. Remember that number. 6,000 towns and cities use its system. It says the system reads more than 20 billion license plates each month. This is a national issue.

Hampton is one part of it and it's the part that obviously that I'm in. But what got me onto this, right, I say about two and a half, three weeks ago or more, maybe even a month ago, a video on social media by Ashley the Baroness helped me look at this in a larger way where she explained the lantern laws and flock cameras. And she connected those together throughout our history, throughout our national history, how lantern laws were created and down to today to current real time with your flock cameras. Like I said, I'm going to link the video down below. I don't it's an amaz It's amazing research, but she always does amazing research in that field.

So, she is one of a kind and I'm going to definitely link it below. Now, after 9/11, people wanted more safety. I remember exactly where I was on 911. I was in Miss Janet Rash's art class at Hampton High School on the second floor. Um, which vents like 911. Uh, they really scar you. They scarred who all of us who lived through it to the point that it made a permanent print to that I remember the exact place where I was at in time and who the teacher was and everything. So, um, it's one of those situations where it it's it it's a horrible sad situation, but it's also a situation, too, that like I said, it it people wanted more safety, but I don't think that people wanted what happened from 9/11 in terms of losing rights, in [snorts] terms of being monitored.

The those are a couple of things. You want safety, but you don't necessarily want to lose your rights. But we all understood that. But new power needs clear limits before it becomes normal. And I'm going to put quotations in front of normal. Now, a Washington Post report found at least 69 police officials accused, charged, or convicted of misusing flock or other plate readers systems. In at least 15 cases, a victim, activist, or reporter was the first to found that possible misuse. Now, we're talking about nationwide, right? 69 officials, but 15 of those cases were bought by somebody other than the police department. When the department does not find the misuse first, the check is not working well enough cuz one case is too many.

So, 15 of that is definitely too many. Some cases involved officers tracking women they knew, like the case in Texas. A deputy searched the flock system for a woman. The search note said had an abortion. Search for female. The sheriff said it was a welfare check. Welfare check. Later records showed the case also had a death investigation. No abortion charge was filed against the woman. But no matter what label anyone puts on it, a woman's movement was searched in a case tied to abortion. That's it. That's the headline. If that doesn't give you bone chilling right there, I don't know what will at that point because that is a woman's right issue.

That is a privacy issue. All in a nutshell. Now, Flock CEO Garrett Langley said humans make bad decisions. He also said no one elected him, the police chief of America. That is why leaders we elect have to own the rules and the check of everything in this video. The woman's right thing is important to me, but placement is what concerns me as well. The map I am showing on your screen is not the city's official camera list. Some dots may be city cameras, others may be private or belong to another agency. A blank spot does not prove there are no cameras there, but the map still shows heavy visible clusters near Mercury Boulevard and Coliseum Central.

Large parts of Fox Hill show much less. So, I am concerned about both sides of that map. Places that appear to have a lot of cameras and places that appear to have far fewer. So Hampton's policy says cameras can be placed near entrances and exits, roads that cars have to use, places tied to crime or open cases. Those may be a good reason. If they are, the city should be able to show that work. But here's something I also want you all to know. This procurement order by the city and process was done in 2021. And I'm going to also have a video that shows how quickly from 2021 and all of that to 2026 to real time, how quickly those cameras went up.

And it goes to show you with what we're dealing with here. The same thing with the data centers and different stuff like this. It all comes together in a nice neat little package when you just think about these things are happening at light speed. And that's the one of my main concerns. But that's also the reason why I'm running for city council because again you have to have people on council that is able to work with technology and light speed because as a part as a planner but also as my past in telecommunications I know this technology like the back of my hand. I use this technology. Why would you not use a technology if you not use it? But why would you not study these things?

Those are all the things that I say to myself when dealing with technology. So, I have to stay above and on the forefront of these technologies and it cost me a lot. [laughter] But residents should be able to see what the city owns, what it can search, why it's picked, the places it did, and then we can see whether people in some parts of Hampton carry much more of this watch, we're going to call it watch, than others. Now, what I am not saying, I'm not saying the map proves the system is unfair. I am saying it raises an issue the city should answer with data, not words. As you all know in front of city council, I say it all the time and in general, I say it all the time.

We're done with just words. Actions speak louder than words will ever do. So, and data definitely speaks louder. And also, I want to go back because I told you this was made in 2021 in 2026. Now, this should not be looked at as one of those things where the data will will tell us that. It should not be looked at as a thing that the data won't tell. The data will the data will tell us everything. But moreover, I want to know the rationale behind where it was placed. Period. Now, something else Mr. Alexander the resident said stayed with me. It stayed with me. He said the average age of city council is 65 years old. That was a sharp line. But the point under it is deathly serious.

This is not about saying older people cannot lead. It is about having people in the room who will live with these new rules for a long time. That should include younger people and working people. Former mayor Donnie Tuk said he wanted more young people to run. This was the last year before that election. That's this is what he said. Now, Mayor Jimmy Gray said higher pay could help more people run. I'm going to get to that in a second. In 2024, the council set his pay at 43,000 for the members and 20 and 47,000 for the mayor starting in 2025. It's offset by a year, right? Then it passed another 4% in 2026. That begins in 2027. Now, I agree that public service should not be only for the wealthy, but a raise after election day does not solve what stops people from running before election day.

And we're going to have an open and honest conversation about that in another video, but we're going to have a quick conversation right now. The cost of a campaign, time away from work, being known, and who who gets into the room matters. Those are all some of the different things. Also money. Citizens United was one of the most key pieces of legislation. Well, court decisions in the world because now you're dealing with potentially unlimited funds or whoever wants to give. And the biggest thing about campaigning is money. Definitely money. And you have different candidates. And speaking of Mayor Gray, when he literally said, um, people decide to give and whatnot to who they want, there's also special interest in that.

There's companies that decide to give. And I look at the whole giving thing, and I'm going to give you all an inside look at this. I look at the giving thing as one of these things that I try to do it the real way, people, but the message is going to get out regardless. I'm going to get the message out regardless whether that's taking me. But there are things and people and interest and groups that I will not take money from because I was taught a long time ago that when you get money from donations from people and people that know of your work and stuff like that, that's a that's one thing, right? That's a whole different story. People know you work hard, they want to support your campaign, all of that.

Cool. Okay. But when it comes from people that don't know you or groups or entities that don't know you, never seen you before, the saying is all money isn't good money because that money is coming for a reason. Let's be honest. Let's be open and honest about this. That money is coming from somewhere. It's coming for a reason. So you take it, you take that and do with that as you please. But that's one of the key things in terms of an election. Use Hampton for example, literally have 31 different precincts. You got to get to 99,000 registered vote eligible registered voters. How do you get to those people without money? [laughter] So that's that that goes my little talk about that.

But when choices about cameras and AI and our rights are made, that is definitely something that we should have a diverse council on and a younger council needs to have a voice. But what does that mean? Younger generation and younger people have to run. Have to go out there. Put it out there and let the people decide. But put yourself out there. So anybody that's listening to this that potentially could want to run, you should do it. It's a servant position. You are serving. It is nothing more than that. Nothing more, nothing less. But everybody should want to serve. or if you don't want to serve, you don't have to, but it's one thing that you should want to serve.

So, let's make this let's wrap this up and make this position clearly. I'm not calling for flock cameras to come down yet. With every piece of my being yet, before we decide whether they should stay, grow, or come down, I need to see real proof. I need to see that they solve crimes, that the abuse is found fast, and that where they are placed has a real and fair reason behind it. I also do not want us to forget the bigger work. If we want less crime, we have to fight poverty and crime are synonymous together. People need good jobs, steady home, help when life falls apart, and a real path forward. A camera can help after harm happens. It cannot do that work alone.

I am young enough to still believe we can make people safer by fixing what leads to violence. I am old enough to know we should not give up freedom just because someone or some official politician calls it safety. Hampton is one part of a national story. Every community deserves safety, freedom, and proof that the system it pays for is used the right way. This information is free of charge. No payw wall, no gatekeeping. No matter what you might hear on any ad, the new generation does not want to start over. The new generation wants to find what's working and keep it. The new generation wants to get rid of anything that is not working. But the cold thought is working.

Doing the work. Whatever the program or system should be doing the work. This is not about starting over. This is about working. Research costs money. Public records cost. The tools and video work cost. If this helps you and you can help it, keep going. com/join. The links will be below and there you can find the signs. You can also find the donation button, but you can also start find ways to volunteer and also if you are skilled in any camera work, videography, social media, and you want to help the campaign out, please get in contact with me. We always have spots and we're always looking forward any talented person that is talented in those fields or anything else.

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