Vandals destroy Flock camera in South St. Paul

By Jake Spitzack | Staff Writer | October 2026

One of South St. Paul’s nine Flock cameras is out of commission due to a criminal sawing clean through the metal post that supported it. The cameras, which utilize automatic license plate reading technology, have been under scrutiny ever since cities across the region began installing them – South St. Paul’s went up nearly a year ago. Some residents fear the technology is being used by United States Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who continue to seek out and deport illegal immigrants in the wake of Operation Metro Surge. It turns out those fears have been justified in some regards.

South St. Paul Police Chief Brian Wicke said he discovered in April that the Mille Lacs County Sheriff’s Office had accessed the South St. Paul Flock camera database to conduct civil immigration enforcement work. Cities and counties are allowed to sign what’s known as a 287g agreement, allowing them to perform federal immigration work on behalf of ICE. Police departments without a 287g agreement are only authorized to act on criminal immigration cases, such as when an illegal immigrant has been deported but has reentered the country. Wicke said that neither South St. Paul nor Dakota County have a 287g agreement.

“We started getting wind that there were possibly law enforcement agencies that we had [data sharing] agreements with that also had agreements with the federal government,” said Wicke. “The Milles Lacs County Sheriff’s office looked in our file cabinet and after we discovered this was for the purpose of civil immigration enforcement, we went back to Flock to see if they got any data out of our file cabinet. They were able to affirm to us that they looked in our repository of pictures, but we didn’t have any pictures that matched what they searched for.”

The violation of trust prompted Wicke to end data sharing agreements with all other police departments, which was approximately 75 across Minnesota and Wisconsin. However, police departments can still request information from the South St. Paul database. If the South St. Paul department deems it’s a valid request, it does the search and shares the results.

Internal audits for South St. Paul Police Department’s Flock database are done monthly, and third party audits every other year. Also, artificial intelligence features notify the department if there is reason to believe someone is wrongly using the system. Flock cameras don’t record video but rather take pictures in rapid succession. Photos are stored for 60 days before deletion, according to Flock. The Minnesota legislature is discussing legislation to potentially cut that to seven days. Flock is just one of multiple brands that offers the technology.

Reaffirmed commitment
While the cameras are controversial to some, they have proved useful for the South St. Paul Police Department, including in cases that Wicke said would likely have gone unsolved just a few years ago. For example, the cameras allowed the police to find the driver of a car that struck and dragged a woman last winter, and more recently a man who was driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol in a school zone when students were leaving school. Other success stories can be found at southstpaulmn.gov.

Losing the camera that was recently cut down at Southview Boulevard and Highway 52 came at a particularly inopportune time. The department had an active domestic abuse case involving a firearm and Wicke said the camera would have been the one most likely to catch the offender if they returned to the victim’s home.

“In this case, the family involved had nowhere to go, so they were remaining at the house,” said Wicke. “If our technology was up and running at this location, our officers would have gotten an alert that said this car is coming back. More likely than not, we would have known where this car was going and we could have intercepted and executed an arrest prior to coming back…. Sure enough, the car returned to the area. We tried stopping them and it turned into a chase, and the pursuit went all the way out to Minneapolis. Thankfully our partners in Richfield were able to throw stop sticks to slow the car down. The car goes down in the ditch and the bad guy takes off running – kind of typical cop stuff. Our canines are in the pursuit and we get the guy into custody. It’s a win. In the car, there’s the handgun that he had threatened to use.” The chase occurred because the offender sent the victim a message that they were coming back to attack them and South St. Paul police officers were able get to the victim’s home by the time the perpetrator returned.

Flock camera locations are available online, and most in South St. Paul are near highway ramps. Wicke said the cameras have been vandalized several times, including spray painting lenses, but this is the first time one has been cut down.

The city installed the cameras using funds from a two-year state grant received in partnership with the City of West St. Paul, and those funds will be depleted in fall 2027. At that point, the cameras will need to be funded by the city if they remain – each cost about $3,000 per year to operate. Notably, the City of West St. Paul recently suspended its contract with Flock and removed its 10 cameras, citing concerns from the public regarding their usage.

“This technology is incredibly valuable, but I understand that we need to enhance our education side of it to get that confidence back with our community,” said Wicke. “I am advocating for this technology because without question it enhances public safety in our community, but with any technology comes risks…. Are there vulnerabilities? Are the guardrails in place to make sure it’s safe? Are we ethically moving in a direction that’s in alignment with what our community wants? These are all concerns.”

Automatic license plate reading technology has been used by the police department since 2012 when similar cameras were installed on the light bars of police cars; now similar cameras are mounted on dashboards. Wicke acknowledged that little-to-no community feedback was sought regarding installation of the new cameras.

How Flock cameras work
In an effort of full transparency, Wicke unveiled the backend of the system in a recent interview, without disclosing any confidential information. When using the database for an investigation, an officer can enter a case number or details about a vehicle such as physical features like “missing hubcap” or “dented passenger side door” and choose whether they want to search only their own database or include databases of others in sharing agreements (South St. Paul now has zero sharing agreements). The database can then use artificial intelligence to identify if the vehicle has been recently seen.

The cameras notify police officers if a vehicle associated with a crime passes by. This allows officers to quickly find criminals traveling through the city. Wicke made it clear that officers can’t stop a vehicle simply because it was flagged by a camera. They must always have a reasonable cause. He also admitted that the system isn’t perfect. In one instance, an officer in Plymouth found a car that was flagged as being stolen from California. In reality, the license plate of the stolen vehicle was improperly entered by the officer, so it matched the innocent man’s license plate.

The cameras can capture clear images of vehicles even on high-speed roads and freeways and maintain high resolution when images are enlarged. The cameras are positioned at angles to prevent sight into vehicles – the demonstration showed at least five cars and there was no sight into any of them – however it can’t be guaranteed. Wicke also said some are concerned the cameras can be used to monitor people’s daily movement, but it’s not plausible with their network of just nine cameras. He encourages anybody with questions about the technology to contact the police department or their elected officials. For more information, visit southstpaulmn.gov/1090/FLOCK-ALPR.