By admin 
York County Sheriff Tony Breeden is touting the effectiveness of the department’s Flock license plate readers, and promised transparency with the community on how the cameras are utilized.
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The same Flock cameras are at the crux of a lawsuit against the sheriff’s office filed in late June where a Lake Wylie man was held at gunpoint by a deputy for five minutes after a traffic stop following a mistaken Flock camera hit, court records allege.
In a two-minute video posted on the sheriff’s office Facebook page on Tuesday, Breeden said the cameras are an ample crime-fighting tool, saying that citizens who have not committed wrongdoing should not be worried about the cameras.
“We just felt it was time to address as a whole what Flocks are and how we’re using them,” Breeden said in the video.
Breeden said the department’s cameras have helped solve over 250 cases, including 27 car break-ins, an armed robbery at a Burger King and a July 2025 homicide at Lake Wylie.
“Our main priority at the York County Sheriff’s Office is to protect the county, and we’re going to use these tools to continue to protect the county,” he said.
The video had over 5,000 likes and 8,300 comments as of Wednesday afternoon.
Breeden said he also wanted to clear up misconceptions about Flock. He said the sheriff’s office doesn’t watch cameras in real-time, and there are restrictions on which officers can access camera data.
He said the county is in the process of adding a “Flock Transparency Portal,” which shows a department’s policies and camera usage statistics.
“One of the number one things we want to do is remain as transparent as possible while also protecting the county,” he said.
How many cameras are in York County?
The sheriff’s office bought 15 Flock cameras in the past five years, spokesman Trent Faris told The Herald on Wednesday. The York County Council most recently approved the $51,000 purchase of eight Flock cameras in March 2023. The money used for the purchases came from the sheriff’s office budget and covers two years of costs, he said. The dollar amount for the 2021 purchase of seven Flock cameras was not immediately available.
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It remains unclear if the sheriff’s office intends to request money from York County in its budget to add more Flock cameras in coming years.
The sheriff’s office declined to say where the cameras are located because it would allow criminals to circumvent the cameras, Faris said.
There are also 26 Flock cameras in Rock Hill, according to a police department spokesperson.
What are Flock cameras?
Flock manufactures automatic license plate readers, which use artificial intelligence to collect vehicle data and license plates.
The Atlanta-based company has partnered with over 5,000 law enforcement agencies across the U.S. The American Civil Liberties Union estimates there are between 90,000 to 100,000 Flock license plate reader cameras in the country.
Critics of the cameras call them an invasion of privacy and an infringement of civil liberties.
Court documents: Flock cameras can make a mistake
In late June, The Herald and Charlotte Observer first reported a Lake Wylie man filed a lawsuit against the York County Sheriff’s Office after he was held at gunpoint for five minutes after a Flock camera incorrectly read his license plate as being a stolen car, court records show. Documents in the lawsuit show the license plate was off by the first letter.
The sheriff’s office blamed the misread plate on a tinted license plate cover, according to internal sheriff’s office records that are part of the lawsuit. However, the same license plate was read correctly 13 times previously by Flock cameras, according to the documents.
That lawsuit remains pending in York County civil court.
Police officers have been accused of misusing the cameras to track people, and false Flock hits have led to people being held at gunpoint or jailed. Two police officers in Greer, S.C., were fired this month on allegations of misusing Flock cameras.
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Staff writer John Marks contributed to this report.