Following their release of a 15-month analysis of Monterey Park’s Flock camera access logs spanning May 2025 to July 2026, DeFlock Monterey Park held a teach-in, with public officials against the technology, criminology and legal experts in attendance.
Both experts and residents raised questions about the technology and in how the city is auditing Flock camera logs.
The technology has become a flashpoint local issue in Monterey Park, neighboring cities and agencies across the nation. Law enforcement officials say the cameras – aided by artificial intelligence to capture images of cars, license plates and other vehicle features, and feed into a database accessible to law enforcement agencies – is a vital tool to solve and prevent crime.
Critics say the cameras spur surveillance concerns, high rates of false-positive identifications, various instances of police misuse and illegal sharing of local data with federal agencies, such as immigration enforcement.
In Monterey Park, watchdog group DeFlock Monterey Park last week released what it said was an analysis of the the city’s Flock records, citing “widespread audit failures” by city entities.
City officials have pushed back on the group’s finding, saying the “amateur” analysis skews the results, giving a misinformed view of the technology.
All that set the context for Saturday’s teach-in at the George Elder Community Room, where beyond discussing general information regarding the city’s technology to a group of about 50 people, both experts, residents and some elected officials from surrounding cities weighed in.
One speaker, criminology expert, Carlena Orosco, teaches the subject at Cal State L.A.
Her research and experience spans numerous areas – de-escalation policing, police dispatchers, crime analysis and law enforcement decision making – though Orosco’s subject-matter expertise, policing and crime analysis, led to her providing crime analysis instruction to new crime analysts in the Caribbean, a UN-led effort.
According to Orosco, the empirical evidence studying ALPR technology’s ability to reduce violent crime is often lacking, and can often be explained by other factors. Positive effects on policing include problem-oriented policing, or looking at root problems; specialized training, community collaboration, situational crime prevention and hot-spot policing
“We can’t attribute case clearance by investigators, for example, solely to the presence of ALPR cameras, especially if there are data-driven policing efforts,” Orosco said. “There’s no causality there, therefore it’s not evidence-based.”
Other speakers, such as Pasadena Vice Mayor Jessica Rivas, were also concerned about the reliability of Flock cameras as a traffic tool.
Rivas, who in her city initially approved Pasadena’s Flock contract alongside other Council members at the time, did so citing safety concerns with Rose Bowl traffic.
Now, her concern is the technology’s capability for misuse.
“We have a federal government out there that doesn’t respect our laws,” Rivas said. “In Minnesota and other states, they will set aside constitutions, laws, if they think it’s getting in the way of immigration enforcement.”
Both Orosco and Rivas said the possibility for ALPRs to track people’s identifiable features beyond license plates – searching networks both in the city Flock is contracted with and other cities – can lead to racial profiling and false positives.
Earlier in August, the Institute for Justice —a nonprofit public interest legal firm— reported “well over 100 incidents of ALPR abuse, including romantic stalking, wrongful stops and detentions, non-law enforcement use, and other types of misconduct.”
The American Civil Liberties Union’s ALPR page also cited that “Even though Flock does not formally have a contract with ICE or CBP, local police departments have carried out searches on behalf of ICE for immigration purposes.”
“In Pasadena we have about 60 cameras or so … they’re not really at the Rose Bowl, which is what I initially thought they would be. They’re across the entire northwest part of the city, which is my neighborhood,” Rivas said, whose neighborhood she said is historically Latino and Black.
According to Rivas, at least two Pasadena Council members are considering ending the city’s contract with Flock and opting for a different vendor; Rivas, herself, wants to end the Flock contract without renewal.
“There is a difference between one ALPR reader in one place where you have concern, versus blanketing the city and tracking everyone all day.”
Among those in the audience – many residents from Monterey Park, with some from West Hollywood, Glendora and Alhambra, where ALPRs have also brought controversy – were public officials. Some had questions about requesting public records from their own cities, like DeFlock Monterey Park had done.
Monterey Park’s police and city council were invited, but were not in attendance.
According to Mayor Henry Lo, DeFlock Monterey Park’s analysis, posted online, “are uninformed and reflect a troubling pattern of deliberate or negligent misinformation.”
“Amateur ‘audits’ of data without an understanding of law enforcement policies, procedures, or practices simply adds to misunderstandings,” Lo said in a statement. “It does nothing to advance our collective interest in preserving civil liberties and, also, protecting public health, welfare and safety.”
DeFlock Monterey Park’s analysis looked at a 15-month period of Flock camera logs, citing various “widespread audit failures” by Monterey Park Police Department that they say potentially violate state law under SB 34, an 11-year-old California measure in which state law enforcement agencies are barred from sharing license plate reader data with out-of-state public agencies or federal entities, and the state’s civil code, which requires “reasonable” data security safeguards.
On Oct. 3, 2025, MPPD made three queries with the reason “henderson pd 25-16925”; and while there’s no Henderson Police Department in California, Henderson Police Departments exist in Nevada, Kentucky and other states.
Additionally, on April 8, 2025 and May 2, 2025, MPPD made five total queries with the reason “Nova Investigation” – the name of a private, Los Angeles-based investigation firm.
According to city officials, they are waiting on approval from Monterey Park police to provide DeFlock Monterey Park with information with the unique user ID information from the specified agent and organizational network access logs that state which entities searched specific queries and accessed specific Flock networks in conjunction with Monterey Park’s.
Network access logs show which networks – jurisdictions with Flock systems – are accessed.
Until that information is provided, DeFlock Monterey Park member Hrag Balian said the Flock camera searches “are conducted in a complete black box.”
Speakers also criticized that, without information on the auditing process for Flock cameras, like how rigorous the audit process is, what the auditing officer is looking for and if information is truly deleted from the system in time, there isn’t proper oversight.
While not a designated speaker, South Pasadena Mayor Sheila Rossi, who was in attendance, answered questions about her own experience convincing her fellow council members to cancel South Pasadena’s Flock contract.
South Pasadena was the first city in L.A. County to cancel a Flock contract, though their council is considering contracting with other ALPR contractors.
“As a council member, I can be responsible for my police force and hold that accountability, but I can’t do it for all the police forces across the state or maybe country that now have access,” Rossi said. “That’s where, from a regulatory standpoint and from a fiduciary responsibility standpoint, I made that case.”
Monterey Park Police Department did not respond to requests for information about their auditing processes or attributable metrics for reduction in crime.
“At this point, the city’s auditing process seems to be the honor system,” Balian said.
Joshua Silla is a correspondent with the Southern California News Group.