How Flock Cameras Wrongly Tracked Me for Days Over ‘Stolen’ Plates and Sent Police After Me
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How Flock Cameras Wrongly Tracked Me for Days Over ‘Stolen’ Plates and Sent Police After Me
A simple error got magnified by Flock's nationwide surveillance camera network and ended with four cop cars boxing me in.
By Joel Feder
Published
Jul 8, 2026 10:37 AM EDT
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Joel Feder
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"Are you armed?!" the police officer screamed. "Get out of the car!"
On an otherwise normal Sunday afternoon in late June, I’d decided to take the $155,000 Range Rover I was testing that week out to run some errands with my wife. Little did I know that choice would complete a technological chain linking surveillance cameras, AI, and law enforcement that led to me and my wife being surrounded by police, hands on their guns, in a Kohl’s parking lot in suburban Minnesota.
After dropping off our Amazon returns, we’d just gotten back in the Range Rover and reversed maybe two feet out of the spot when four cop cars came flying out of nowhere and boxed us in. The officers jumped out and started shouting. It’s a situation that can quickly and frequently turn bad, so as unprepared as I was, I followed their orders, got out with my hands up, and tried to figure out what the hell was happening.
Eventually, after a tense hour, I did. The Plymouth Police Department had been tracking me for days using Flock license plate cameras, waiting for the right moment to strike, because they thought I’d stolen the Range Rover. And the reason I was ID’d as a dangerous car thief was a simple data error made 2,000 miles away in California, creating an edge case within an edge case that Flock’s AI camera network was unable to handle.
We now live in a surveillance state where cameras mounted on stoplights are tracking our cars, our devices, our pets, and even us. This is just the beginning; next, these cameras could be put in motion using our kids’ school buses. Whether you’ve actually stolen a car or are just rolling down the road having done nothing wrong, like me, once these systems have you in their crosshairs, there’s pretty much only one way it can go. Welcome to the future. It’s scary out there.
Joel Feder
Back in the Kohl’s lot, I was standing there with my hands up, still getting over the shock of throwing the Range Rover in reverse and seeing four cop cars materialize on the backup camera, lights blazing. Officer Max Ganshyn asked me again if I was armed or if I had any firearms in the vehicle while two officers circled around the passenger side to get my wife out. He patted me down, and when he realized I presented no risk, he asked for my ID. Then he asked who owned the Range Rover.
"It’s a complicated answer, and I’m happy to explain, but I’m going to need you to be patient," I replied. I tried explaining what The Drive is, what I do for a living, and how I could be driving a six-figure luxury SUV that doesn’t belong to me. A confused look crossed his face. "Yeah, I’m not a car guy," he said. Fortunately, one of the other officers had heard of us.
On the other side of the car, the officers were busy grilling my wife; our stories lined up because we were telling the truth, and they seemed to relax a bit. But they still weren’t letting us go. I sensed my opportunity and asked point blank: What is going on here, and why are we being detained?
"The plates on this car are stolen," Officer Ganshyn said. My face must’ve twisted in disbelief because he continued, saying they weren’t sure whether the car itself or just the plates were stolen. This made absolutely no sense. Car companies keep meticulous track of the fleets they loan out to the media. The vehicles all have special manufacturer or dealer plates that are logged every time one enters or exits. The officers eventually ran the Range Rover’s VIN, and it came back clean, but in their view, the plates were definitely stolen.
Before I could even process that, another officer dropped the big surprise: they’d actually been tracking me around town for days via Flock cameras. But they kept losing the trail, so when a camera alerted them that the Range Rover had been spotted turning into Kohl’s that morning, they quickly set up their ambush and waited for me and...