Audit logs: 594 agencies ran 3.8M searches of Prescott PD's Flock network in six months

First reported: September 3, 2026 · 1 source

Larson Newspapers obtained Prescott Police Department Flock Safety audit logs through a public records request filed Aug. 19, covering Jan. 1 through June 30. The logs show 3,830,002 searches of Prescott's automated license plate reader network by 594 agencies, with nearly half carrying no case number and 1,000,738 lacking any written explanation. The ten most frequent searching agencies were all outside Arizona and accounted for 1,376,301 searches, or 35.9% of the total, led by the Dallas Police Department, the California Highway Patrol and the Riverside County Sheriff's Office. Prescott's own case-number field was redacted in the network log, but an unredacted internal log of 8,778 searches showed 101 with no real case number, citing entries such as "investigation," "training," "test," "demo" or another agency's name.

Why this matters

Audit logs are the primary mechanism communities have for verifying that ALPR searches are tied to actual investigations, and the reported gaps in case numbers and written justifications limit what outside reviewers can determine about why searches were run or on whose behalf.

Key facts

Logs cover Jan. 1–June 30 and record 3,830,002 searches by 594 agencies; only 32 left the dropdown reason category blank, but 1,000,738 had no typed explanation.
Yavapai County Sheriff's Office ran 271 searches of the Prescott network; 182 carried a case number, 89 did not, and 92 had no written explanation.
Cottonwood Police Department ran 624 searches, attaching a case number to 272 and leaving 352 (56.4%) blank; 345 (55.3%) had no written explanation. Cottonwood had not produced its own audit logs by the Aug. 28 deadline after a July 17 records request.
All 287 searches citing the Partners Against Narcotics Trafficking task force were run by Prescott PD and each included both a case number and a written explanation.
A parallel review of Coconino County Sheriff's Office logs (Jan. 1–July 22) found 53.8% of 3,259,997 searches had no case number; case-number fields were redacted in both agencies' network logs.
Tempe announced Aug. 26 it canceled its Flock contract, saying it found no misuse of its own network; Pinal County Sheriff's Office, Surprise and Cave Creek also ended use. A Chandler officer resigned Aug. 13 after the city said an audit flagged an unexplained anomaly, and Arizona's Family Investigates reported Aug. 20 that a former Apache Junction officer resigned after admitting he misused Flock to track his wife.
Flock announced changes Aug. 13, including cutting default retention from 30 days to seven, an offense-type sharing filter, and a forthcoming "Evidence Mode" for preserving data in active investigations.

Sources

This summary was written from the published reporting below and links to it; BlockFlockNow does not reproduce article text.

594 agencies run 3.8M searches of Prescott PD’s ALPRs, half without case number (Journalaz.com, September 3, 2026)

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About this record

BlockFlockNow documents reported incidents involving Flock Safety cameras and automated license plate readers: council votes, contract decisions, misuse by authorized users, lawsuits, audits, and community response. Every record is reviewed by a person before publication. New to the topic? Start with What is Flock?, find meetings near you, or learn how to request your town's camera records.

Updated September 7, 2026. Corrections: blockflock@bytebunny.io. See all documented incidents or search the full article archive.