Flock status: Nonrenewal confirmed; physical removal documented in progress
Campaign status: Removal and remaining-ALPR verification
Last verified: October 20, 2026
Westland is a real Metro Detroit nonrenewal example.
In July 2026, Westland Police Chief Kyle Dawley decided not to bring the city’s Flock contract back to City Council for renewal.
Local reporting described a council divided over the technology after residents spent months attending meetings, asking questions and raising concerns about privacy, surveillance, transparency and oversight.
Councilmember Melissa Sampey said the department would allow the agreement to expire rather than seek another term.
Local 4: Flock camera contract will not be renewed in Westland
FOX 2: Flock cameras coming down in Westland
That matters.
It shows that a local ALPR contract does not have to become permanent simply because cameras are already installed.
What Westland originally approved
The official July 1, 2024 City Council record shows two separate ALPR-related approvals.
Flock Safety
Council approved a professional-services agreement for Flock Safety to:
- deliver, install and service 10 automated license plate readers;
- for a two-year term;
- at an amount not to exceed $67,100.
Official July 1, 2024 Westland City Council minutes
Axon Enterprises
The same council action also approved Axon Enterprises to activate an ALPR function under the city’s existing master services and purchasing agreement for police body and vehicle camera equipment.
The official meeting synopsis describes that approval as:
- a 43-month term;
- amount not to exceed $78,081.87.
Official July 1, 2024 meeting synopsis
That second approval is why we are being careful with the word DeFlocked.
Ending Flock is not necessarily the same as ending ALPR.
If Westland removes its Flock cameras but continues operating another system capable of materially similar mass vehicle tracking, then the vendor changed but the surveillance practice did not fully end.
The current questions are therefore bigger than:
Are the Flock cameras coming down?
We also need to know:
Is the Axon ALPR function still active?
What does that system collect and retain?
How broadly can it be searched or shared?
Does it create materially similar searchable vehicle-location records?
Until those questions are answered, the most accurate status is:
Flock nonrenewal achieved. Broader ALPR end state still being verified.
What happened in July 2026
On July 9, 2026, both Local 4 and FOX 2 reported that Police Chief Kyle Dawley would not bring the Flock contract to council for another renewal vote.
FOX 2 reported that the cameras would remain until the existing contract expired and would come down afterward.
Michigan Public later reported that Westland had discontinued its Flock contract in early July and that the cameras would be removed gradually in the following months.
Michigan Public: Communities across Michigan move to ditch Flock cameras
That gives us strong evidence of the nonrenewal decision.
Physical removal began in September.
Reporting published September 17 documented a Westland Department of Public Service worker using city equipment to remove a Flock installation. That moves the record beyond a promise that cameras would eventually come down: physical removal was underway.
Detroit News report republished by AOL: Westland removes a Flock installation →
Additional October reporting said city removal began September 15 and described 29 Flock cameras across the city. It also obtained a $67,100 contract for 10 Falcon cameras and FlockOS Essentials, reinforcing that a contract quantity and a later physical count may measure different things. We still want a final city inventory rather than treating either number as the definitive completed-removal count.
October records-based report on removal and contract features ↗
One documented removal does not establish that every city-associated Flock camera is gone. It also does not answer what happened to accounts, network access, routine data or the separate Axon ALPR capability.
Resident participation appears to have mattered.
Sampey described months of residents:
- attending meetings;
- asking questions;
- sharing concerns;
- and speaking publicly about surveillance and oversight.
Michigan Public similarly reported broad community feedback against continuing the Flock relationship.
We should not claim one organization or person single-handedly caused the decision unless the evidence establishes that.
What the reporting does support is simpler and more useful:
local civic participation was part of the decision environment, and the contract was not renewed.
That is exactly why residents should not assume an existing surveillance contract is untouchable.
One camera-count question remains unresolved.
The official 2024 approval specifies 10 Flock ALPRs.
In August 2026, Michigan Public quoted Sampey saying the city had 29 Flock cameras.
Those numbers may reflect:
- different points in time;
- later expansion;
- different ways of counting equipment;
- or another distinction not visible in the records we currently have.
We do not choose whichever number is more dramatic and pretend the discrepancy does not exist.
For now:
10 Flock ALPRs is the number documented in the July 2024 council approval.
29 is a later figure attributed to a Westland council member by Michigan Public.
The current inventory or later procurement records are needed to reconcile them.
What still needs verification
Physical Flock removal
Have all Flock cameras now been removed or clearly decommissioned?
Removal activity is now documented, but we still need an authoritative final inventory and confirmation of the completed end state.
Flock access
Have Westland user accounts, alerts, searches and sharing relationships been disabled?
Data disposition
What happened to routine Flock data after the agreement ended?
Were any records preserved as legitimate case evidence?
Was remaining vendor-controlled routine data deleted according to the applicable terms?
Axon ALPR
Is the separately approved Axon ALPR functionality still active?
What is the controlling agreement today?
What are its retention, access, sharing and search capabilities?
Replacement technology
Has Westland purchased, proposed or activated another system that materially replaces the Flock vehicle-tracking capability?
Why Westland matters beyond Westland
This is already an important regional lesson.
The city bought Flock.
The cameras operated.
Residents raised concerns.
Council became divided.
The police chief did not seek another Flock term.
The contract expired.
That is a concrete example of nonrenewal working as a removal strategy.
But Westland also teaches the second half of the lesson:
Do not stop at the vendor name.
A community is not truly finished with mass vehicle tracking if substantially similar ALPR capability remains under another agreement.
Our current Westland status
We are using a cautious progression:
Nonrenewal confirmed
The Flock agreement was not brought forward for renewal.
Service ended
Reporting places expiration in late July 2026.
Removal underway and being verified
September reporting documented physical removal activity. We have not yet established that every city-associated Flock installation has been removed or decommissioned.
Broader ALPR status unresolved
The separate Axon ALPR agreement needs current verification.
DeFlocked
Not yet claimed.
For us, that status means the covered mass vehicle-tracking practice has ended and we have not identified a materially similar replacement.
That is a higher bar than:
Flock is gone.
It should be.
Have current Westland records?
Useful records include:
- the final Flock agreement and expiration documentation;
- records confirming camera removal or deactivation;
- the current Axon agreement and ALPR configuration;
- current surveillance policies;
- camera inventories;
- retention or sharing records;
- and any later procurement involving replacement ALPR technology.
If you already have them, send the records rather than filing a duplicate request.
Send us a record or correction →
What Westland residents can do now
The most useful work is no longer persuading council not to renew the Flock contract.
That part happened.
The useful work now is:
- verify that Flock shutdown and removal are complete;
- establish the current status of the Axon ALPR capability;
- check for any materially similar replacement;
- preserve the public record of how nonrenewal happened;
- and turn the experience into a useful example for other Metro Detroit communities.
See what happens after a community chooses nonrenewal →