Kalamazoo Police Removes GRPD Flock Camera Access (AGAIN)
Ran into Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety Chief David Boysen today while grabbing a blueberry lemonade at the best coffee shop in downtown Kalamazoo, and he confirmed a major update regarding our local surveillance data. Chief Boysen confirmed to me today that KDPS has once again removed the Grand Rapids Police Department’s access to its Flock license plate reader system.
This comes after I brought critical information to his attention regarding a mystery account on the system. A source identified that the "J Mar" account on GRPD’s Flock system isn't an individual officer. Instead, it is a shared account that GRPD provided to the Joint Marshal Task Force—a multi-jurisdictional fugitive apprehension team spearheaded by the U.S. Marshals Service.
Why does this matter? The Joint Marshal Task Force has participated in Immigration Enforcement activity.
By allowing an unaccountable, shared task force account into the system, GRPD essentially created a backdoor that threatens to violate Kalamazoo's policies against using city resources for civil immigration enforcement.
Kalamazoo is supposed to have 100% control over who sees our data. It is good to see that after listening to the breakdown, Chief Boysen confirmed the access has been cut to protect community trust.