EASTPOINTE (WWJ) -- The day after the city terminated its contract with Flock Safety, Eastpointe's police chief admitted that two officers allegedly misused the controversial surveillance cameras.
The Eastpointe Police Debarment announced Wednesday that it has opened an internal investigations into the two officers after reporters with USA Today noticed unusual activity in the audit logs by the officers.
Those logs were made public through public records requests.
One of the officers allegedly used the surveillance tech for personal issues, and the other committed a policy violation.
Chief Corey Haines said, in a statement:
"The Eastpointe Police Department received information that two (2) of our employees may have misused the Flock License Plate Readers. After a full investigation, it was determined that both employees did misuse FLOCK; one for personal purposes and the other was a policy violation.
The personal use incident resulted in severe discipline commensurate with the employee's years of service and spotless personnel record. The second situation is still under investigation. Additional safeguards have been implemented to prevent the misuse of all sensitive information.
The City has and will continue to review any reports of misuse of Flock systems in accordance with City of Eastpointe Police Department policies and procedures. However, individual law enforcement personnel records are exempt from disclosure."
The USA Today report revealed that one of the officers allegedly searched for a single vehicle between August 2024 and June 2025 more than 600 times. Another officer allegedly searched for one license plate more than 60 times on a single day, in July 2024.
The officers have not been publicly identified.
At Tuesday night's city council meeting, the Eastpointe City Council moved to terminate the contract with Flock. Now City administration and the city attorney are working on the contract termination procedure with Flock, according to Haines.
The chief said the police department has discontinued the use of FLOCK, is awaiting further direction from city council, and will continue to investigate crimes using all other available law enforcement tools.
