Why Verona Put Bags Over Its Flock Cameras

TL;DR: Emails obtained by 404 Media through a public records request show that Verona, Wisconsin voted not to renew its contract with the automated license plate reader (ALPR) vendor Flock, then asked Flock repeatedly to pull the three cameras out. Flock did not. A Flock employee told city officials that they were unsure whether the cameras could be remotely disabled. Flock told city staff not to remove the hardware themselves. So a Verona city staffer emailed colleagues: "For the time being, if you or someone on your crew has availability to secure black plastic bags (or something else) over the cameras, that would be great" ^[1]. Verona is not the only city doing this. Dayton, Ohio and Evanston, Illinois have both covered Flock cameras with black trash bags while waiting for the cameras to come down ^[2]. The pattern exposes a structural trap in Flock's contracts: voting a camera out does not mean the camera leaves.

What Happened in Verona

Verona, Wisconsin installed three Flock automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras. The city council voted to let the Flock contract lapse rather than renew it ^[1]. The city expected the cameras to come down.

They did not.

404 Media reviewed the Flock-Verona email chain obtained through a Wisconsin public records request. The records show that, after the non-renewal vote, Verona officials asked Flock multiple times to remove the three cameras. Flock's response, according to a Flock spokesperson quoted by 404 Media, is that the city had voted not to renew the contract, not to cancel it mid-term, so the company was not obligated to remove the hardware on the city's preferred timeline ^[1].

One Flock employee told Verona staff the company was unsure whether the cameras could be remotely disabled. Flock told city employees not to take the cameras down themselves ^[1]. A Flock work order opened in response scheduled "maintenance" on the cameras, not removal ^[1].

That left Verona with cameras that the mayor said were still working, a vendor that would not pull them, and a back-end deactivation the vendor would not confirm.

The Bags

So Verona staff put black plastic trash bags over the lenses.

The direction came in an internal email: "For the time being, if you or someone on your crew has availability to secure black plastic bags (or something else) over the cameras, that would be great" ^[1].

Verona Mayor Luke Diaz told the Wisconsin Examiner in February 2026 that Flock was not pulling the equipment. "They weren't removing them," Diaz said. "We kind of looked at the contract, talked it over amongst staff, and the thing we felt most comfortable with was just covering them so they could stop spying on people." Diaz added: "I'm 100% certain that they were still working" ^[1].

That is the operational problem the bags solve: a city government cannot simply yank hardware it does not own off a pole, and it cannot tell whether the hardware is still watching after the contract ends. A trash bag over the lens is the cheapest legal intervention a city can make.

Verona Is Not Alone

The same workaround has shown up in other cities that want their Flock cameras gone.

Dayton, Ohio covered its Flock cameras with black trash bags in 2026, with Dayton Police Department agreeing to work with Public Works on the coverings ^[2]. The move came amid resident outrage, an audit of how Dayton's cameras were being used, and a scandal in which Dayton shared Flock camera data with immigration enforcement "apparently on accident" ^[2]. Dayton is also paying for a $30,000 audit into how its cameras are being used ^[2].

Evanston, Illinois covered its Flock cameras late last year, per a report 404 Media linked in its May coverage ^[2]. The Los Angeles Police Department let its Flock contract expire over a weekend in 2026, in part because of the practice of "investigating" innocent people whose license plates had been flagged as stolen ^[2][3].

The wider pattern is that Flock's installed base has become a national flashpoint. Cities, residents, and lawmakers are pushing back on the cameras in different ways. Verona's bagging is the most visible municipal workaround to date, but the contractual friction that produced it shows up wherever a city tries to end a Flock deal.

The Contract Trap

The reason this story matters outside Verona is that it lays out a structural feature of Flock's sales model. Cities that want their cameras gone have to navigate three separate hurdles.

First, the contract term. Voting to "not renew" leaves the hardware on the pole until the existing term runs out. Flock, in Verona's case, treated the distinction between cancellation and non-renewal as a reason not to remove the cameras on the city's preferred timeline ^[1].

Second, the deactivation question. A Flock employee told Verona staff the company was unsure whether the cameras could be remotely disabled ^[1]. If Flock cannot or will not deactivate the cameras at the back end, the only way to stop them from capturing plates is to physically cover or remove them.

Third, ownership of the hardware. Flock told Verona city employees not to take the cameras down themselves ^[1]. Municipal staff who damage vendor-owned equipment on a public pole are exposed to liability even after the contract ends.

Put the three together and a city that votes its cameras out can find itself with months of bagged-but-still-mounted hardware it does not own and cannot confirm is off.

What to Watch

Whether Flock removes the Verona cameras. The 404 Media reporting is dated July 22, 2026. Watch whether the three Verona cameras come down before the existing contract term ends, and whether Flock issues a public statement on deactivation.

The Dayton audit. Dayton is paying for a $30,000 audit into how its cameras are being used ^[2]. The findings will be the first public, line-by-line accounting of where Dayton's plate reads went. Watch whether the audit shows ICE access beyond the admitted "accident."

State-level pushback. Lawmakers in several states have introduced bills to limit ALPR retention or require warrants for queries. If more of those pass, the "not renewing" loophole gets less important because the data ages out anyway.

Whether other cities follow Verona's playbook. Bagging is cheap and reversible. Cities that cannot get Flock to remove the hardware on their preferred timeline now have a visible precedent for covering the cameras while the contract wind-down plays out.

Sources

Published: July 23, 2026