u/vbe123

Cobb Police Chief Dan Ferrell will be holding several town hall meetings over the next month in response to concerns over how law enforcement is using Flock surveillance cameras and other new technology.
Cobb Police Chief J.D. Ferrell
One of those town halls will be in East Cobb, on Aug. 31 at the Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center.

Cobb County government on Wednesday announced the town halls as “community conversation about License Plate Readers (LPRs), Flock Safety technology, and FUSUS.”

The latter is a a cloud-based real-time crime center and public safety intelligence platform and is among the tools that Cobb Police have been using to track criminal activity.

“These meetings are an opportunity to learn how these public safety tools are used by the Cobb County Police Department, what information they provide to law enforcement, and how they support criminal investigations and public safety,” the Cobb government announcement said.

“Most importantly, we want to hear from you. Residents will have an opportunity to ask questions and hear directly from Chief Ferrell and department leadership.”
A number of incidents in Georgia and around the country have taken place alleging or involving law enforcement misuse of some of that technology.

In Paulding County, the former 911 director in Dallas is facing charges of accessing the Flock surveillance system for non-police reasons.
And in Macon, three Bibb County Sheriff’s Deputies have been arrested for using the Flock system for matters involving individuals with whom they were having personal relationships. All three have resigned from their positions.

Cobb Police have not been facing any similar situations, and have on occasion touted how Flock and other technology has helped to solve serious crimes or at least led to arrests.
That includes a mass shooting near Cumberland Mall in 2023 in which an arrest was made after Cobb DOT traffic cameras pinpointed the whereabouts of the suspect, and Flock cameras identified a vehicle in Midtown Atlanta that allegedly belonged to him.
In June, Cobb Police tracked down a suspect in a road rage incident in Northeast Cobb after reviewing real-time camera footage to identify his vehicle as it headed to Cherokee County, where he was arrested.

On Thursday, Flock announced it will be making some changes to address concerns over privacy and law enforcement excess.
The Cobb Police announcement about the town halls on its Facebook pagehas generated more than 600 comments, many of them critical of having Flock and other technology at all.
“Are you actual going to listen to residents, or just tell them why you’re going to keep flock cameras against the communities wishes and continue to use them even though they violate our rights?” asked one commenter.
“It’s a violation of privacy and you need a warrant. Stand up against this. Constitution protects us against this in the 4th amendment,” wrote another.

Another commenter who said he toured the Cobb Police Real Time Crime Information Center was told that department leaders had given a similar tour to the American Civil Liberties Association, and that “the ACLU reps asked for a copy of the Center’s policies as they felt it would make a great example for all agencies, nationwide, to use. Cobb citizens should be very proud of what CCPD is doing to protect and serve the community.”

The Cobb Police town hall sessions are scheduled as follows, with all taking place between 6:30-8 p.m.:
Thursday, Aug. 27, at Milford Recreation Center, 675 Smyrna Powder Springs Road, Marietta
Monday, Aug. 31, at Sewell Mill Library, 2051 Lower Roswell Road, Marietta
Tuesday, Sept. 1, at West Cobb Senior Center, 4915 Dallas Highway, Powder Springs
Tuesday, Sept. 15, at North Cobb Senior Center, 3900 S. Main Street, Acworth (in Kenworth Park)

Hello framers, to those of us that use black glue, who is your source? I’m having problems finding it.

Hello framers, to those of us that use black glue, who is your source? I’m having problems finding it.

I'm a dad in Dunwoody, GA who's been investigating Flock Safety's contract with the Dunwoody Police Department since January 2026.

On March 25, 2026, during the Dunwoody City Council Strategic Planning Retreat, the police chief told the Mayor and every council member on camera:

>

You can verify it yourself at the 4:03:13 timestamp of the City's own YouTube video.

What are "shot detectors" actually doing?

Calling them gun-shot detectors is the least alarming framing possible. They are high-powered microphones that are already picking up human voices. Flock got caught sending recordings overseas to gig workers who were training their AI models to "distinguish between an adult and a child" — per their own training materials.

ICE Access

At a February 23rd council meeting, a councilwoman asked whether Dunwoody was sharing its data with ICE. Major Krieg's answer: "Ultimately we're sharing with any law enforcement agency that's reaching out to help us in a law enforcement capacity."

The Dunwoody Network Audit logs back this up: 35,932 searches in 2025 by DHS, CBP, and USPIS on data from anyone living, driving, or walking through Dunwoody.

Then on May 13th, after I filed an open records request for the Flock system settings, Dunwoody had in the coincidence of the lifetime just toggled on filters blocking immigration and abortion-related searches, right before handing over the records.

Worth noting: those filters don't prevent someone from searching for those reasons and just writing something else as the justification. That wouldn't show up in any audit trail.

Dunwoody is still opted into nationwide data sharing with 1,000+ external agencies, auto-approved without any human review. Since April 13th alone, 37 new agencies were auto-approved, including departments as far away as Louisiana, Ohio, and Virginia. Every single one of those is another vector for misuse with zero meaningful oversight.

And when a Dunwoody officer was caught using Flock illegally for personal benefit? She walked away without being charged. The system that tracks every citizen regardless of whether they've committed a crime apparently doesn't apply the same standard to the people operating it.

The Part That Should Make Everyone Uncomfortable

The City has already passed an ordinance banning "hate crimes" in 2019.

Here's what the ordinance actually says:

"Discriminate, discrimination or discriminatory means any act, policy or practice that, regardless of intent, has the effect of subjecting any person to differential treatment as a result of that person's actual or perceived… national origin."

The ordinance also requires the City to:

• Develop guidelines for identifying and investigating hate crimes
• Provide hate crime training to law enforcement
• Collect and report annual hate crime statistics to the FBI

Council members present and voting when that passed: Denis Shortal, Lynn Deutsch, John Heneghan, Tom Lambert, Terry Nall, Jim Riticher, and Pam Tallmadge.

Lynn Deutsch is now the Mayor. Lambert and Heneghan still serve on the council.

All three were sitting in the room on March 25th when the chief said the quiet part out loud. None of them said a word.

Even Flock's Own Ethics Policy Prohibits This

Flock's own ethical creed states they "will not adopt technology that... has significant potential for disparate impact on historically marginalized groups."

And two sitting U.S. congressmen (Krishnamoorthi and Garcia) have launched a formal congressional investigation into Flock over its role in enabling surveillance that threatens "the privacy, safety, and civil liberties of women, immigrants, and other vulnerable Americans." Their words: "Flock Group Inc. cannot claim to protect public safety while enabling surveillance that undermines reproductive freedom and civil rights."

Not calling the police is not a crime.

The City Council has one lever here: they can choose not to renew the contract. That's it. What they cannot do is keep pretending they didn't hear what their police chief said.