It’s hard to escape the debate over Flock Safety cameras — from city council candidate forums to the discussion over Tulsa’s next police chief. Now, the top cop in Coweta is asking the company to uninstall the town’s two cameras, and he says his colleagues in other departments aren’t happy about it.
“I am not trying to be the bad guy here. I am responsible to the citizens of my city and my jurisdiction,” said Coweta Police Chief Mike Bell. “They are the ones that put me where I’m at today, and I owe them a chance to sit down and have a conversation with them. I would ask other chiefs to do the same thing.”
Bell says his constituents saw the AI-powered automatic license plate readers as a “threat” that needed to be deactivated before rebuilding trust with the police department. This comes months after a developer canceled plans to build a hyperscale data center in Coweta following protests from community members.
“The last nine months the City of Coweta has went through some pretty tough times,” Bell said. ”The citizens were pretty upset about the data center, and some of the things that the city leadership was doing transparency-wise, and it really created a rift, shall I say, in between us and the citizens.”
Bell says he’s not advocating for neighboring departments to follow suit, “unless that’s what they thought they needed to do.”
“Because some of the other chiefs, they’re not happy, obviously, with, you know, what I did out here in the public,” he said. “…What I’m trying to tell them is, listen, you need to understand something. Each chief needs to make their own decision as to what they’re gonna do for their citizens within their jurisdiction.”
State law says data collected by automatic license plate readers, like Flock Safety cameras, shall not be used by any individual or agency for purposes other than enforcement of the Compulsory Insurance Law or as otherwise permitted by law. Police departments in Tulsa, Broken Arrow, Owasso, Jenks and Sand Springs also use Flock Safety cameras, among numerous other law enforcement agencies in northeast Oklahoma.
Concern surrounding the use of these cameras for law enforcement purposes isn’t new. The Flyer previously reported about the Tulsa Police Department’s use of Flock Safety cameras to investigate protesters and the broader debate between privacy and public safety advocates.
Candidates for Tulsa City Council are sharply divided on the police department’s use of Flock Safety cameras, ranging from guarded support to outright opposition. During recent forums, District 5 incumbent Karen Gilbert endorsed the cameras, while District 2 Councilor Anthony Archie, District 9 candidates Shawn Tiemann and Pete Regan as well as District 7 incumbent Lori Decter Wright support keeping the technology — with regulations and guardrails.
Conversely, District 9 hopeful Ben Johnson, District 2 challenger Aaron Bisogno, District 7 candidates Dave Perry and Kenny Wogoman, District 5 challenger Adam Burnett, District 3 incumbent Jackie Dutton and challenger Tanisha Bowen oppose the technology. Johnson went so far as to call the use of the cameras a “violation of the Bill of Rights” and likened it to the George Orwell novel, “1984.”
“The vast majority of people that know these things exist want them gone, and the rest don’t even know about them,” said Ben Darnaby, a 20-year resident of Tulsa.
Darnaby runs a Deflock Tulsa account on Instagram. He says he was surprised to see Coweta’s plan to remove the cameras.
“I was honestly pretty shocked. The reception in Oklahoma has not been great to getting rid of the Flock cameras,” Darnaby said. “So, to see the actual chief come out and listen to the people’s concerns was kind of awesome.”
He says he hopes law enforcement leaders surrounding Coweta will take note of Bell’s action and sit down with their constituents to hear their concerns about the technology.
Where other departments stand
Sand Springs Deputy Police Chief Todd Enzbrenner agrees. The department currently deploys six Flock Safety cameras, according to the annual policing plan, with plans to install two more soon. He says the department should do more to inform the public about the technology’s use.
“We’re going to beef (the policing plan) up a bit to explain to the community exactly what it does, and every chance I get to talk to community members about Flock, I do,” he said.
The Tulsa Police Department’s website says the Real Time Information Center deploys about 75 license plate readers and live streaming cameras across the city, though the locations are not posted. Our partners at The Frontier, however, reported in April 2025 the department has access to a camera network closer to 300. TPD has declined records requests from The Frontier to disclose the cameras locations.
Capt. Richard Meulenberg, a spokesman for the department, says as technology advances and courts continue to adjudicate the issue, the use of Flock Safety cameras should always be under review.
To that end, Flock Safety announced Thursday the company is cutting its default data retention window for law enforcement agencies to seven days — down from 30. The company is also pushing for state legislation that requires police departments to adopt auditing practices and require case numbers for every search.
“I think everything should always be open for review because things change, because these technologies have advanced…” Meulenberg said. “And then for us as a government, we’re beholden to the people. So for us, it’s incumbent to always review the policies and see if we’re doing the best thing.”
Bell says Coweta’s two cameras will remain operational until they are removed in September. After they are taken down, he hopes to engage with folks in Coweta about the technology, which he says has helped the department catch shoplifters from Walmart and Atwoods.
“I’m not gonna get a valid conversation with anybody as long as they feel like there’s a threat out there to them…” Bell said. “Once I take the threat away and remove them, I’m hoping that we can all sit down and have a valid conversation over these things and maybe educate a little bit on both sides.”
Bell hopes to eventually bring back the technology after meeting with community members about the use of Flock Safety cameras, but recognizes it may not happen.
“Maybe they could educate me, I could educate them, and maybe sometime down the road… we can all come to an agreement that these things aren’t the big, bad wolf that everybody thinks they are, and they may actually have a purpose and then maybe bring them back,” Bell said. “That may or may not happen. I don’t know, but at least I’m giving it a chance.”
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