By rssfeeds-admin 
Staff report
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — September 5, 2025
Two Flock Safety automated license plate-reading cameras along Bloomington’s west side were cut from their poles near the Walmart where masked federal immigration agents detained two men earlier this week.
A community member who noticed the missing cameras while driving alerted The Bloomingtonian and asked about them. The Bloomingtonian visited both locations Saturday and photographed the damaged/missing equipment. The cameras themselves are gone.
One camera was positioned along West State Road 45/Bloomfield Road across from the Walmart at 3313 W. State Road 45. The second was farther west on State Road 45, beyond the Circle K at 2510 S. Leonard Springs Road.
Both locations appear to be within unincorporated Monroe County in Van Buren Township rather than within the Bloomington Police Department’s jurisdiction. The city recently ended their Flock contract, but equipment remains.
However, The Bloomingtonian has not independently confirmed which law enforcement agency owned or operated the two cameras.
A different community member told The Bloomingtonian that law enforcement officers appeared to be investigating the damaged cameras Friday. Photographs made by The Bloomingtonian on Saturday show both camera systems lying on the ground beside poles that appear to have been cleanly cut. The cables for the cameras are also cut.
The Bloomingtonian had not contacted the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office as of Saturday. The damage was discovered during the weekend, and the department had not issued a news release or otherwise provided information about the incident.
A label visible in the photographs identifies part of the equipment as belonging to Flock Safety. Another label lists the model number “IP-M30WB-GH7,” but that number belongs to the system’s 30-watt solar panel rather than the license plate-reading camera itself. The photographs do not provide enough information to identify the camera model or establish which agency controlled its data.
The cameras were near an area where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducted enforcement operations earlier this week. In one incident outside the west-side Walmart, masked federal agents allegedly rammed a blue 2009 Honda Civic before taking its driver and passenger into custody, according to a witness who provided video and photographs to The Bloomingtonian.
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office previously told The Bloomingtonian that the officers photographed during that detention were not sheriff’s deputies. Bloomington police were also not involved.
It is not known whether the damage to the cameras was connected to the ICE operations. The Bloomingtonian has found no evidence identifying who cut the poles or establishing a motive.
Flock cameras photograph passing vehicles and record license plates, vehicle characteristics, locations and times. The information is uploaded to a searchable database that can be accessed and shared by participating law enforcement agencies. A members of law enforcement in Jackson County was recently arrested for abusing the system. Investigators allege he conducted 2,055 searches of the same license plate between Dec. 31, 2025, and Aug. 2, 2026.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Atlas of Surveillance reported that, as of September 2025, the Bloomington Police Department operated 40 Flock cameras, while the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office operated eight. Indiana University police operated six, and the Ellettsville Police Department operated two. Those figures do not establish which agency operated the two cameras damaged this week. Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Atlas of Surveillance
Police departments say automated license plate readers can help locate stolen vehicles, identify suspects and solve crimes. Civil-liberties organizations argue that the systems also create records of the movements of people who are not suspected of committing crimes.
The EFF reported in 2025 that Flock cameras photograph every passing vehicle and associate those images with a time and location. An analysis by the organization found that agencies had also searched the nationwide network in connection with protests and political demonstrations.
The technology has faced increasing opposition around the United States over privacy, data sharing, immigration enforcement and government transparency. Some communities have terminated or reconsidered their Flock contracts, while others continue to defend the cameras as public-safety tools.
Similar networks of cameras and automated identification systems are central to government surveillance in China. In the United States, the technology is generally presented as a crime-fighting system, but its rapid expansion and the ability of agencies to search data collected outside their jurisdictions have intensified concerns about government tracking.
Those concerns have become particularly acute as masked federal agents conduct immigration operations without advance public notice, leaving residents uncertain about who is operating in their communities, what information authorities are collecting and how surveillance data may be used.
Video link: “Civil rights attorney Leah Frazier talked about the rapid, disproportionate spread of Flock surveillance cameras into Black and brown communities and how ICE and local police are already using the data to track people without a warrant. Frasier warns the technology could be weaponized against protesters and dissidents, comparing the trajectory to an Orwellian surveillance state.”
The post Two Flock surveillance cameras cut down near site of Bloomington ICE detentions first appeared on The Bloomingtonian.
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