r/okc • u/Jarrett1604 • 6h ago
Politics Update on the OKC Flock records requests: five of eight were closed in four days with no response, and the department's own paperwork contradicts what the FOP told KOCO
Update for folks who've been following this since the spring threads.
In early July I filed eleven follow-up records requests about the Flock camera system. In plain language, they asked: who is allowed to search it, which outside agencies get OKC's data, who signs off on sharing, what training officers actually get, and whether the department has any measurement showing the cameras work.
On July 13, four days after filing, five of the eight requests to OKCPD were marked "Completed" in the portal, however we received no documents, no correspondences, no written explanation, no email - nothing. The portal is read-only for requesters, so there is nothing to reply to and nobody to ask. It just closes.
Three others came back as formal denials through the Municipal Counselor's office. I asked for records connecting Flock to actual case outcomes, stolen vehicles recovered, arrests...anything. The written answer, citing the Open Records Act, is that those records are not kept.
Four days after that answer, the FOP president went on KOCO 5 and said Flock "has been instrumental in catching very violent and bad folks." Instrumental. Four days after the department told me in writing that it keeps no records connecting Flock to a single case outcome. Both cannot be true. We pay $270,000 a year for this system, and the people touting it get to say "instrumental" on the evening news while the department's own paperwork says nobody is measuring anything. If it works, show the receipts. They can't. Their own written answer says the receipts don't exist.
On the vote: July 21 came and went with no renewal vote. That's the fourth date that has slipped. I'll be honest, I haven't made the last few meetings myself. Between work, and finding out morning-of that the vote wasn't even on the agenda, it kept sliding down my priority list. The datacenter fight is eating council's agenda time and there are a ton of cards in the air at City Hall right now. I'm done predicting dates. Council meets every other Tuesday at 8:30 AM. If you can be in that room, be in that room. The vote lands eventually, and it matters who's in the chamber when it does.
The scrutiny isn't just City Hall anymore either. At the Capitol, Sen. Mary Boren (D-Norman) is pushing an interim study on who holds Flock data, how long they keep it, and who gets access. Rep. Tom Gann (R) held one on ALPRs last fall. The last bill that tried to expand ALPR use in Oklahoma died in the Senate with 68 percent voting no. Privacy isn't a partisan issue here. News9 covered the whole thing this week: https://www.news9.com/oklahoma-politics/okc-flock-camera
One more thing, and this one is our own backyard. On July 21, Sheriff Adam Woodruff of Latimer County announced his office reviewed Flock and refused it, citing the exact concerns we've been putting up a stink about for months: privacy, data sharing, transparency, and the potential for misuse. An Oklahoma sheriff looked at this platform and decided his county can keep people safe through proactive policing and sound investigative work without it. If Latimer County can police without Flock, so can Oklahoma City.
The ask hasn't changed: don't renew the contract, remove the cameras, and don't replace them with another ALPR vendor's version of the same system.
Every request number, closure, and response letter is documented at deflockokc.com/records.html.
TL;DR: OKCPD closed five of eight records requests in four days with nothing attached. They say in writing that no records link Flock to case outcomes; the FOP says it's been "instrumental." Both can't be true. The vote keeps slipping, an Oklahoma sheriff just said no to Flock, and the room at City Hall still needs bodies in it.
