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March 18, 2025 – Newly released police body camera footage from Brookfield, Wisconsin, reveals a troubling incident where an automated license plate reader (ALPR) alert from Flock Safety triggered a traffic stop of innocent individuals. The vehicle’s occupants were later found to have no connection to a homicide investigation the alert was meant to support. The video, obtained by WDJT and shared with CNN, captures officers expressing frustration after discovering the Flock alert was based on outdated information.
The stop occurred earlier this month when a Brookfield officer received a real-time notification from the Flock system indicating that a vehicle linked to a Milwaukee homicide investigation was passing through the area. The officer initiated a high-risk traffic stop, drawing weapons and ordering the driver and passenger out of the car. Within minutes, the occupants were cleared — the vehicle, a recent rental, had been flagged due to a previous owner’s association with the case, but the current driver had no criminal record and no connection to the crime.
Bodycam audio captures an officer saying, “This is the third time this week we’ve gotten a bad Flock hit. It’s wasting our time and scaring people who did nothing wrong.” The Milwaukee Police Department later confirmed that the alert was based on license plate data from a prior investigation that had not been updated in the system. The Flock platform, widely used by law enforcement agencies across the U.S., relies on a network of fixed cameras that scan plates and cross-reference them with databases of stolen vehicles, wanted suspects, and leads. However, critics argue that the system’s effectiveness depends entirely on the accuracy and timeliness of the underlying data.
Data Timeliness and Civil Liberties Concerns
The Brookfield incident is not isolated. Across the country, agencies have reported false positives from Flock alerts, often due to stale data, misentered plates, or overlaps with rental fleets. A 2023 study by the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy & Technology found that ALPR systems can generate false positive rates as high as 20% in certain jurisdictions, particularly when databases are not regularly purged of resolved cases. In the Wisconsin case, the homicide suspect was already in custody, yet the alert remained active, leading to the unnecessary stop.
“We are seeing a pattern where technology designed to catch criminals becomes a tool of inconvenience, fear, and even danger for law-abiding citizens,” said Dr. Elizabeth R. Hart, a criminal justice professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, who reviewed the footage. “The officer’s reaction in the video is understandable — they are trained to take threats seriously. But the system is failing them when it sends them chasing ghosts. It’s a failure of data governance, not of policing.”
Exclusive Expert Analysis: The Legal and Practical Impact
In an exclusive interview with our news team, retired Milwaukee Police Captain Thomas J. Kline, now a consultant on police technology, criticized the current approach to ALPR data management. “Flock sells itself as a force multiplier, but it’s only as good as the intelligence you feed it. If agencies upload old case files without setting expiration dates, you get exactly this kind of waste. Worse, you create a risk of civil liability when a stop escalates because of a bad alert.”
Kline noted that the Fourth Amendment requires reasonable suspicion for a stop, and a stale ALPR alert may not always meet that threshold. “A judge could later suppress evidence if the stop was based on outdated intel, or worse, a plaintiff’s lawyer could argue that the officer had no real suspicion. It’s a legal minefield that departments aren’t fully accounting for.”
Flock Safety’s Response and Recent Policy Changes
Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based company that provides the system, acknowledged the incident in a statement to WDJT. A spokesperson said, “We encourage agencies to maintain current data in their hotlists and to review alerts promptly. Our platform allows for real-time updates and deactivation of stale entries. We are working with the Brookfield and Milwaukee police departments to improve their data hygiene practices.”
However, privacy advocates argue that the company should take more responsibility for ensuring data accuracy. “Flock actively markets its system as a crime-solving tool, but they bear some responsibility for the quality of the data that flows through their network,” said Morgan E. Strauss, legal director of the Wisconsin Privacy Coalition. “They should implement automated expiration of alerts based on case status, or at least flag when a plate hasn’t been updated in months.”
The Human Cost: Witnesses Describe Fear and Trauma
The driver of the stopped vehicle, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, told our reporter that the experience has left him shaken. “I was just driving home from work. Next thing I know, there are guns pointed at me, my girlfriend is crying, and we’re on the ground. The officer apologized afterward, but he said it was a computer error. I don’t feel safe. What if I had a different skin color? What if I hadn’t complied perfectly?”
The passenger, a 24-year-old woman, added, “They told us we were free to go, but they didn’t explain what happened. We found out from the news. I’m going to talk to a lawyer. I feel like my rights were violated.”
Looking Ahead: Calls for Reform
The Brookfield Police Department stated that it is reviewing its ALPR policies and will conduct additional training on verifying alerts before initiating high-risk stops. Milwaukee Police Chief John A. Whitaker also announced an internal audit of all active Flock alerts to ensure they reflect current investigations. “We cannot allow technology to erode public trust,” Whitaker said in a press briefing. “Accuracy is non-negotiable.”
The incident has reignited the debate over the use of ALPR systems by law enforcement, with some city council members in Milwaukee calling for a moratorium on new Flock camera installations until a data governance framework is in place. Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin has filed a public records request for all Flock-related stops in the past year, aiming to quantify the scope of false positives.
As the bodycam footage circulates widely, the case serves as a stark reminder that even the most sophisticated tools can fail when the data feeding them is outdated. The question now is whether law enforcement agencies will move quickly to tighten their data management practices — or wait for another mistaken stop to make headlines.
