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Lansing City Operations Committee, April 23

Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 25, 20267 min

The Lansing Committee on City Operations met for 32 minutes on April 23, 2026 with all three members present. The committee passed a Compost Awareness Week 2026 resolution 3-0, placed a downtown liquor-license transfer notice on file 3-0, and received a verbal-only briefing from Chief Robert Backus on the Lansing Police Department's Flock Safety camera program that produced no motion, no referral, and no follow-up.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Lansing City Operations Committee, April 23

Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 25, 20267 min