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Rhinoceros Media

Series · 4 posts

Lansing Under Surveillance

Lansing's Flock Safety camera deployment — the vendor's funding, the program's governance, and what the city's chief told the council.

  1. SurveillanceMoney

    Who Owns and Funds the Cameras Watching Lansing

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 22, 2026

    The "Flock Grant system" named on the Lansing Committee on City Operations agenda is not a charitable program. It is a service Flock Safety itself operates, in partnership with Lexipol's GrantFinder platform, that identifies federal and private grants municipalities can spend on Flock subscription fees. Flock Safety is a privately held, venture-capital-backed Atlanta company most recently valued at $7.5 billion, with Andreessen Horowitz leading a $275 million Series F in March 2025.

  2. Surveillance

    Why Does Lansing Need Flock?

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 22, 2026

    The Lansing Police Department operates approximately 20 Flock Safety automatic license-plate-reader cameras under a program never voted on by the City Council and never substantively reviewed by the Board of Police Commissioners. The program's existence and September 2025 deployment were first identified through a public-records release by the Pittsboro, NC Police Department. The Committee on City Operations took it up for the first time on April 23, 2026 with no contract, policy, or audit.

  3. Surveillance

    What the Evidence and the Record Show About Flock's Cameras

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 23, 2026

    The peer-reviewed evidence on whether automatic license-plate-reader networks reduce crime is mixed at best, with the strongest study designs in Mesa, Alexandria, Fairfax County, and Baton Rouge finding no significant reduction. The 2024-2026 Flock record includes wrongful detentions, officer stalking, federal-agency access without local authorization, a California class action alleging 1.6 million federal searches, live-feed exposure of 60 cameras, and stolen credentials on stealer-log markets.

  4. SurveillanceGovernment

    Lansing's First Flock Briefing

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 25, 2026

    On April 23, 2026, Lansing Chief Robert Backus gave the city's first sustained public description of LPD's Flock surveillance program, in a 32-minute committee discussion with no written materials. The chief disclosed 52 personnel with platform access, 391 vehicles or vehicle parts recovered with 97 arrests, and six "not concealed" intersections. The minutes record two contradictions: no data-sharing MOUs but MOUs for emergency help, and a 90-day written retention policy versus 30-day practice.

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