Tick tock tick Flock

July 13, 2026

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Visalia Police Department Public Records Request – update

On April 19, 2026, I posted “What the Flock?“, my first entry about the proliferation of Flock Automated License Plate Readers in Visalia, California.

On April 24, 2026, I posted “Well, Flock Me!“, about a nearby community (Merced, California) disabling their Flock ALPR system after problems with unauthorized access were discovered. On that same day, I filed a Public Records Request with the Visalia Police Department, about Visalia’s recent installation of Flock cameras. The City had ten days to respond.

On May 5, 2026, I posted “Flock you later“, where the City of Visalia takes advantage of a 14 day extension to provide the requested documents.

On May 11, 2026, I posted “Flock the Lawyers“, wherein the City informs me they have to run it past the lawyers first, and they were targeting June 1, 2026 for release of the documents.

On May 27, 2026, “Flock Me A Little Bit” is the next chapter, in which the City is initially refusing to provide some of the requested documentation, since I was requesting the images in the system of a particular license plate. My license plate. I sent them a copy of my vehicle registration. The next target date for complying with my request was June 20, 2026.

On June 29, 2026, I posted to Facebook, tagging both the City of Visalia and the Visalia Police Department, that they were nine days past their own due date for information. That was at 1pm. By 3pm, I received a “supplemental response to your public records request”, via email. This response stated “The attached document shows the result of a Department audit searching for any monitoring and investigating activity for JJRJR. No data exists.” Except that wasn’t what I asked them to provide. I had no reason to suspect the Police Department deliberately did a search for my license plate, for whatever reason. What I asked for was every instance of my plate being recorded by the system. Those are two different things. They are not going to convince me that my plate has never been recorded by their system.

In that response, they also moved the date again. More information was supposed to be available July 20, 2026.

On July 10, 2026, I received this letter, and a link to a DropBox file with audit logs.

2026.07.10 RB Ltr to J.ReevesDownload

There are tens of thousands of pages (PDF file pages) in response to this part of my request. In case the link in the letter doesn’t work, you can see them at my Dropbox, at this link: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/6u6l4w0jwe54w6y1fvllu/AAZ4mAaSF8XPUJfqUpd2lwo?rlkey=iuqasfx1t6r8hhwgz02h36us1&st=qkgkdqht&dl=0

They state “The Department’s staff is continuing its diligent search and review of requested records. The Department’s staff members estimate they will be able to supplement this response on or about August 20, 2026, earlier if able.”

Tick tock tick Flock

Flock Me A Little Bit

May 27, 2026

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The next chapter in our Flock Me series is here! Today I received this email from the Visalia Police Department’s lawyers. (I’m going to have to ask why they have an out-of-town law firm doing this, and not the city attorney.)(UPDATE: It’s not actually an out-of-town firm. It’s a local, Visalia law firm. Not sure why I was thinking it’s an out-of-town company. Oops.)

2026.05.27 RB Ltr to J. ReevesDownload

I’ve sent them an image of my vehicle registration, so I hope to get the images of every time my car has been photographed by the system in Visalia. We’ll see.

Here’s the data on the agencies who can access the Visalia Police Department’s camera system. I’m going to have to study it a bit to figure out exactly what it means, and it does not (so far) answer the question of who *actually* accessed the data. This seems to indicate who is allowed to have access, which is not really what I asked. We’ll see if future information dumps include that little detail.

Flock Shared NetworksDownload

For those new to the saga of the Flock Automated License Plate Readers, here’s the blog posts I’ve done so far:

What the Flock?

Well, Flock me!

More Flock, more fun

Flock you later

Flock the Lawyers

Flock the Lawyers

May 11, 2026

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2026.05.11 RB Ltr to J. ReevesDownload

Oh my…

Now the City of Visalia is running it by the lawyers. It also manages to push the “final” date out to June 1, 2026.

As you’ll recall, my first post about it was “What the Flock?“, where I looked at all of the locations where Visalia Police Department (VPD) had installed cameras.

The next post was about a public records request I submitted to VPD concerning the cameras, “Well, Flock me!”

Another blogger, Paul Flores, had the AI system DeepSeek create an interesting look at what I was doing. “More Flock, More Fun“

The first response to my Public Records request was this, “Flock you later“.

Tick Tock

I asked AI to profile me

May 9, 2026

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I asked Gemini AI to create a profile on me, so I could have it compare candidates for office in California’s primary election, and recommend who would be good choices for me to select for my votes. Here’s what it came up with.

This is the political profile I have developed for you, based strictly on the content and commentary found on your blogs, primarily jimmiejoe.com and alternatingcurrents.net. I have used this specific set of values and priorities to analyze candidate platforms and determine which individuals most closely align with your viewpoints in the 2026 California primary.

More

Flock you later

May 5, 2026

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The Flock Automated License Plate Reader saga continues.

As you’ll recall, my first post about it was “What the Flock?“, where I looked at all of the locations where Visalia Police Department (VPD) had installed cameras.

The next post was about a public records request I submitted to VPD concerning the cameras, “Well, Flock me!”

Another blogger, Paul Flores, had the AI system DeepSeek create an interesting look at what I was doing. “More Flock, More Fun“

Today, I got a notice from Visalia PD, advising me they were going to extend their deadline by fourteen days, as provided by law.

I didn’t think I was asking for that much, and I really expected to get very little, with them citing confidentiality laws! 😉

The timer is reset. tick tock

Well, Flock me!

April 24, 2026

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Flock ALPR, Visalia, California

Some more License Plate Reader fun. KMPH 26 posted a story about Merced’s Police Department discovering a, shall we say – just to be very understanding of the complexity of computerized systems – a “mis-configuration” of their automated license plate reader system. Although not the Flock ALPR, like Visalia’s, they released a statement on April 23, 2026, saying, in part, the following:

Merced, Calif – In the interest of transparency, the Merced Police Department is addressing recent concerns regarding automated license plate reader (ALPR) data sharing.

Following these reports, the Department conducted a comprehensive internal review of its ALPR system. That review determined that prior system configurations allowed data sharing with certain federal agencies.

Upon identifying this issue, the Department immediately disabled the identified connections and will continue to conduct additional audits to ensure ongoing compliance.

Merced joins Santa Cruz, Oxnard, and Ventura Police Departments to identify (through media reports, not, apparently, through their own oversight) problems with unauthorized access to their databases. Each agency has said they’ve fixed the problems, but one has to wonder how many other instances of unauthorized access have occurred.

I’ve sent the following Public Records Request to the Visalia Police Department:

To: Custodian of Records
Visalia Police Department
303 S Johnson St.
Visalia, CA 93291
(Or via NextRequest Portal)

Date: April 24, 2026

RE: CALIFORNIA PUBLIC RECORDS ACT REQUEST – FLOCK ALPR DATA SHARING AND SPECIFIC PLATE RECORDS

To the Custodian of Records:

Under the California Public Records Act (Gov. Code § 7920.000 et seq.) and California Civil Code § 1798.90.5 et seq., I am requesting the following public records held by the Visalia Police Department (VPD):

System Access & Inter-Agency Sharing Logs: Any and all records, audit logs, or documentation showing access to data compiled by the VPD via the Flock Safety ALPR system by any agency other than the Visalia Police Department. This request includes, but is not limited to:

Lists of “Hot List” hits shared with outside agencies.

Audit trails showing when outside agencies (federal, state, or local) queried the VPD’s Flock database.

Current lists of all agencies with whom the VPD has a data-sharing agreement for ALPR data.

The time frame for this request is from the initial installation/implementation of the Flock system to the present date.

Specific License Plate Records: All records, images, and data points captured by the VPD ALPR system (including fixed cameras and mobile units) that reference or identify the following California license plate: JJRJR.

This request includes time stamps, location data (GPS coordinates or camera IDs), and associated photographs for every instance this plate was recorded from the time of system installation to the present date.

Redactions and Privacy:
If the Department contends that any portion of these records is exempt from disclosure, please provide the non-exempt portions pursuant to Gov. Code § 7922.525. If any portion of the request is denied, please provide a written response citing the specific legal authority for the denial within the ten (10) days required by statute.

Request for Digital Format:
Please provide these records in electronic format. If the records exist in a searchable database or spreadsheet (such as CSV or Excel), I request they be provided in that native format.

Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Jimmie Joe Reeves
Visalia, CA

That license plate request is for my own car, and I’m interested how many times the system has seen me while I’m running around town. From what I understand of their operational rules, they should have no images older than 30 days. We’ll see if I get anything, or get buried with data files.