On March 25th, 2026, during the Dunwoody City Council Strategic Planning Retreat, the Dunwoody PD Chief told Mayor Lynn Deutsch and every city council member that “the reason we put our shot detection down there is because it’s a predominantly Hispanic community. They normally do not call the police”. It can be evidenced at the 4:03:13 timestamp of the City's own YouTube video.
Calling Flock’s microphones ‘gun-shot detectors’ is the least alarming way of describing what the police department is using to discriminately target Dunwoody’s Hispanic community.
In reality, they are high powered microphones that are now picking up human voices. Flock already got caught sending recordings overseas to have gig workers train their AI models to “distinguish between an adult and a child” according to their own training material.
Major Patrick Krieg actually told me this in person on March 11th when I was at the Dunwoody ‘Real-time’ Crime Center, along with journalist Matt Scott, and security researcher Benn Jordan.
When I heard this, I had many questions, the first of which would be: should we try to find out why they aren’t calling the police before we decide to put a bunch of microphones outside their homes? Maybe instead of blanket surveillance, we should try to build a relationship with them so they have more trust in the police?
I will not attempt to put myself in the shoes of someone in the Hispanic community, but if you were just a casual observer you can see easily why they might not trust the police in Dunwoody.
ICE Access
At the February 23rd 2026 City Council meeting, Councilwoman Lautenbacher asked Flock/the Dunwoody PD if Dunwoody was sharing its data with ICE. Major Krieg said “Ultimately we’re sharing with any law enforcement agency that’s reaching out to help us in a law enforcement capacity for their investigation.”
This is evidently clear by the Dunwoody Network Audit logs which show 35,932 searches in 2025 by DHS, CBP and USPIS (which now aids in mass deportation data sharing) on the data of anyone living, driving or walking through Dunwoody.
Although Flock’s CEO previously claimed that they didn't have any federal contracts, while they were in the middle of a pilot program with DHS, and Flock claims there is no ‘back-door’ access to ICE, the federal government still has plenty of ways to access Dunwoody's data.
The most notable one, is just by illegally accessing a local Flock system with that police department’s consent. Another way would just be to socially engineer police officers, or since Flock doesn’t comply with the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) standards and enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), you could just buy stolen usernames and passwords off Russian forums.
Flock has since said they give agencies the option to “toggle” immigration related searches.
On May 13, Dunwoody fulfilled an open records request for the Flock system settings. In what appears to be the coincidence of the lifetime, the Dunwoody PD turned on a toggle to block immigration searches and abortion related services right before fulfilling my request.
It’s notable that these filters don’t limit someone searching for those reasons, but putting down something else as a justification, which wouldn’t be captured in an audit trail, or someone following the FBI’s guidelines of being “as vague as possible”.
Dunwoody is still opted into the nationwide sharing that enables our data to be shared with over 1000 external agencies, without any manual approval or human in the loop.
Just since April 13th, the user ‘auto-approved’ 37 new ‘law enforcement agencies’ to share with. It shared the Dunwoody PDs main network as well as our parks.
Why agencies as far away as Louisiana, Ohio, and Virginia need to access Dunwoody’s data? I do not know, but every single one of these 1000+ agencies that are added without any regard for our protection is another chance for misuse, and puts the citizens of Dunwoody at risk.
As I have brought up time and time again, there is no way to meaningfully oversee external agencies. Dunwoody’s own police department has let PD officers walk away from their jobs and not be charged with crimes, even after illegally using Flock for personal benefits.
I hope the irony of a police officer not being charged for a crime when they commit one using a system that tracks you, regardless if you are a criminal or not, is not lost on you.
But I digress, let’s go back to the police admitting they disproportionally surveil the Hispanic community.
Non-Discrimination Ordinance
On July 8th 2019, the Dunwoody City Council unanimously passed Article VIII, Unlawful Discrimination, and Article IX, Hate Crime Training and Documentation (ORDINANCE 2019-XX-XX) via the consent agenda.
Present and voting were past council members Denis Shortal, Lynn Deutsch, John Heneghan, Tom Lambert, Terry Nall, Jim Riticher, and Pam Tallmadge.
Lynn is currently the Mayor and Mr. Lambert and Mr. Heneghan still serve on the council.
You might be asking yourself, “well, what is this non-discrimination ordinance?”
Great question, it’s easiest to let it explain itself:
“The intent of the attached ordinance is to protect and safe guard the right and opportunity of all persons to be free from all forms of discrimination, including discrimination based on actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, marital status, familial status, or veteran status.”
“Sec. 24-190 - Purpose and intent. It is the purpose and intent of the Dunwoody City Council to protect and safe guard the right and opportunity of all persons to be free from all forms of discrimination, including discrimination based on actual or perceived… national origin.” “The Council’s purpose in enacting this ordinance is to promote the public health and welfare of all persons who live and work in the City of Dunwoody.”
”Sec. 24-191 - Definitions. For the purposes of this ordinance, the following terms shall have the following meanings:
Discriminate, discrimination or discriminatory means any act, policy or practice that, regardless of intent, has the effect of subjecting any person to differential treatment as a result of that person’s actual or perceived… national origin.
National origin means an individual’s, or an individual’s ancestor’s, place of origin.”
”Sec. 24-200 – Hate Crime Training and Documentation.This ordinance may not be construed to limit any other remedies available under local, state, or federal law.
Definition of hate crime. any crime committed because of the actual or perceived… national origin… of the victim.
(a) Responsibilities of law enforcement and other officials.
(1) The City of Dunwoody shall develop guidelines for the identification, investigation, documentation, and reporting of hate crimes committed with in the corporate limits of the City of Dunwoody.
(2) The City of Dunwoody shall provide training to its law enforcement personnel on local, state, and federal laws involving hate crimes as well as departmental policies on proper identification, investigation, documentation, and reporting of hate crimes.
(3) The City of Dunwoody shall ensure that sufficient resources are made available to the Dunwoody Police Department to develop and implement a standardized system for collecting and analyzing hate crimes committed within the corporate limits of the City.
(4) The City of Dunwoody shall provide annual statistical data regarding the occurrence of hate crimes and the groups or individuals targeted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 534, for entry into the national crime information databases.”
While it’s definitely worth mentioning that this ordinance is supposed to be about private businesses, it is incredibly ironic that the police department that is responsible for “hate crime training” and enforcement, would clearly be in violation of it because they are implementing a “practice that, regardless of intent, has the effect of subjecting any person to differential treatment as a result of that person’s actual or perceived… national origin.”
Even Flock’s own ethical creed states unequivocally that they “will not adopt technology that we determine has significant potential for any of the following, or lacks a technical or policy solution to mitigate these risks: Disparate impact on historically marginalized groups”.
Last time I checked, not calling the police was not a crime. Will Flock turn off these microphones since they are being targeted specifically at Dunwoody’s Hispanic community for committing this imaginary crime?
I personally tend to agree with congressmen Krishnamoorthi and Garcia, who “launched a formal investigation into Flock Group Inc. over its role in enabling invasive surveillance practices that threaten the privacy, safety, and civil liberties of women, immigrants, and other vulnerable Americans.”
In these congressmen’s own words: “Flock Group Inc. cannot claim to protect public safety while enabling surveillance that undermines reproductive freedom and civil rights.”
It is worth remembering the City Council of Dunwoody has no control over what a private technology vendor does, all they can control is if they choose to partner with Flock.
What remains is the most concerning part of this to me: every single City Council member and the Major heard the Chief admit that his department was discriminating against our Hispanic community at the City Council retreat and said nothing. Three of them were even council members that passed this ordinance.
Although they are all white, it might be worth reminding them that they represent every single citizen in Dunwoody, not just people that look like them.
It is clear to me, once again, that our elected officials couldn’t care less about their actual constituents.
What’s Next?
If you live in Dunwoody: please join our Dunwoody Forward Facebook group where we’re building something beyond this: a community that puts citizens ahead of corporations!
If you live elsewhere: join the national week of action!
edited by my wife :)
This is outrageous!!! I live 20 minutes from a mostly Latino city that's got a LOT of Flock Cameras. These are mostly hard working people ~ my friends who are business owners with ties to the community say they're terrified to leave their homes to go to work~ I can't imagine why they would hesitate to call the police. Thanks for your reporting on this!