All Flock Safety surveillance cameras in Harris County’s Commissioner Precinct 4 will be decommissioned amid a growing public furor nationwide about how the data and information the cameras capture is saved, shared and accessed by law enforcement.
Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones, a Democrat up for reelection next month, announced Thursday that she had ordered her staff to decommission and cover the 48 security cameras and 13 license plate-reading cameras spread across her precinct, which covers parts of west Houston and the western portion of the county.
“I have heard my Precinct 4 residents’ legitimate concerns and am committed to addressing them,” Briones said in a prepared statement.
The order comes as growing public concern has spurred elected leaders across the political spectrum to turn against the camera technology, and as Commissioners Court plans to discuss the county's Flock usage at its Oct. 15 meeting.
Commissioners embraced the technology as recently as late May, when they voted to renew a roughly $860,000 annual contract with Flock Safety Group during a brief but contentious meeting at which dozens of residents criticized the renewal; County Judge Lina Hidalgo abstained from the vote.
Law enforcement agencies nationwide can grant each other access to their system of Flock cameras, which officers can use to search for license plates that might be connected to a crime. Police say the technology is a cost effective way to solve crimes, but residents are questioning whether the alleged benefits to public safety outweigh the risk to privacy.
A growing list of officers in the region have faced discipline in recent months for misusing the technology, including three Harris County sheriff's deputies who had their access removed, a Fort Bend County sheriff’s lieutenant who admitted to nearly 190 improper searches and a Pasadena sergeant who resigned following an internal investigation that found he used the system to stalk a female officer.
Gov. Greg Abbott, who earlier this year criticized Austin for decommissioning Flock cameras after a shooting, recently froze state funding for the cameras, taking more than 200 cameras in the Houston region offline.
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Harris County’s Precinct 4 to Decommission All 61 Flock Cameras
The order comes as growing public concern has spurred elected leaders across the political spectrum to turn against the camera technology.
(Jon Shapley/The Texas Tribune)
