POCATELLO, Idaho — Council members had the chance to question law enforcement officials and a company representative about a technology that has become surrounded in controversy – Flock cameras.
On Thursday morning, the Pocatello City Council convened its monthly work session, where council members ask questions and learn more about issues that may end up on the agenda for a regular council meeting. Three police department officials and one representative of Flock Safety addressed the council and answered questions about the usage of ALPR cameras in the Gate City.
During a discussion about whether it’s worth using a technology that many in the public don’t have an appetite for, Council President Corey Mangum emphasized the importance of the Pocatello Police Department tracking results from Flock cameras.
“We should be able to get some kind of number to say this is how many predators we’ve stopped, this is how many drug dealers we’ve stopped,” Mangum said, who presided over the meeting with Mayor Mark Dahlquist absent. “And it’s not lost on me, the fact that we’re the Gate City, and within two and a half to three hours you could be in another state in almost any direction.”
The council approved Flock cameras in May 2025, with Councilman Hayden Paulsen being the only one to vote against their adoption. At the time, now-council members Dakota Bates, Ann Swanson and Stacy Satterfield were not on the City Council.
EastIdahoNews.com recently published a two-part series covering how Flock cameras work and the growing backlash to their implementation.
At the top of the discussion, the police department clarified the capabilities and applications of Flock’s ALPR cameras.
“We do not do facial recognition. We do not identify the driver with these cameras. We do not track cell phones. We do not issue speeding tickets or red light ticket citations. We do not record conversations. This does not replace officer investigation or discretion. It provides probable cause, and it’s a tool in reference to helping us investigate crimes,” said Zac Bartschi, captain of the Patrol Division.
Officers also shared some operational changes the department recently made, such as turning off nationwide Flock network access and limiting national sharing to only the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
During the council’s questioning, Bates sought out clarification on this.
“The information from our cameras is only available to our regional law enforcement partners,” Bates said. “But when I reviewed several of the audits that were included in the agenda, it said, ‘Our cameras are queried daily by agencies nationwide.'”
Pocatello Police Chief Roger Schei clarified, saying that shutting off this network access was a recent change made within the last two months.
When asked if Flock owns or uses Pocatello’s data, the representative said the city owns its own data, and Flock uses anonymized aggregate data for improving its services.
Schei also clarified that the department has not assisted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with immigration enforcement.
“If it’s just for immigration purposes, we’re not doing it. We have searched zero times for just immigration purposes. Most times, ICE calls us, they have something criminal tied to it,” Schei said.
And although police provided some recent examples where they say ALPR cameras assisted in investigations, Swanson questioned how much they do to meaningfully reduce crime, and stressed the need for more information on this front.
“Are there incidents where Flock has resulted in the resolution of serious crimes … crimes against children, violent crime, to justify the public distaste for this and the money that was spent on it? These are the questions that I’m grappling with myself in terms of my interest in continuing Flock services within the city,” Swanson said.
The council agreed that more discussion on Flock cameras was justified, and decided that would take place with a follow-up agenda item at a future work session meeting, but did not specify exactly when that discussion would take place.
This article was originally published by Logan Ramsey with East Idaho News.
