Rockingham County Sheriff Bryan Hutcheson went on the “Rocktown Crime Report” recently to discuss the questions and concerns regarding his office’s use of Flock cameras.
I cannot stress to you the irony of this segment in which he violates Va Code 2.2-5517 in an attempt to try and quell the questions and concerns he has received.
First, Sheriff Hutcheson tries to do this by comparing the speed cameras used by Virginia State Police and the Harrisonburg Police Department recently in the Route 33 work zone.
Let me be clear, Sheriff, most of us citizens don’t like the speed cameras, either, and quite frankly, it’s a weak argument. You’re absolutely right, those cameras do in fact act on the premise that you’re guilty; without identifying the driver, they mail you out a fine.
What you seem to fail to understand, though, is that the Flock system also operates on a premise of people being guilty and leaves us citizens with the burden of proving our innocence. I know this for a fact because in a FOIA request to the Town of Grottoes (which, I might add is using this system in a strategic partnership with your office), the Chief of Police bragged about how they served a summons to a gentleman by obtaining his information via the Flock system, using nothing more than the description of his vehicle.
Never proved he was the one driving it, yet showed up at his house and served him an arrest warrant.
Second, you broke the very law you are trying to claim protects our data and privacy.
Va Code 2.2-5517 strictly states there are only three reasons that system can be accessed:
- criminal investigations
- missing or endangered persons
- real time alerts
Let me ask you this: was the occupant of the county vehicle you searched for in your presentation missing or endangered? Was this individual a person of interest in an active investigation? Did you receive an alert for that vehicle because of an active investigation? If your answer to any of those questions is no, you are the exact type of person we are trying to keep from having this technology.
Your feeble attempt to try and show a picture of the Flock system fails to show the real power of that system. You simply showed a singular picture, but you failed to elaborate on how that photo is one of 12 the system took of that vehicle. You also failed to mention how that picture is then used by Flock and run through its AI where it details damage, bumper stickers, different color panels, and other distinct attributes of any one vehicle.
What’s even more shocking to me is that someone in your position has such low knowledge of the vendor you’ve signed a contract with.
Why wouldn’t we want these cameras outside of schools? Well, because every time a bus passes that camera, it takes 12 pictures of that bus, and subsequently captures the faces of the children riding that bus.
Why is that a scary thought? Well, that’s because Bob Carter, the vice president of Flock, logged into a camera labeled “Gymnastics” over 100 times in 2025, and then Flock employee Randy Gluck frequently accessed cameras labeled “Gym Mendel-1” and “Main Pool Right,” which leads me to my last point, and quite frankly the most damning one.
Sheriff, your agency does not own this data, your agency has no control of this data, or any control over the operational status of the cameras.
I know this due to a FOIA request I filed with your office, in which I obtained emails where Lt Wesley M. Burgyone (whose wife currently sits on the School Board) reached out to Flock on July 17, 2026, asking Flock to turn off the cameras before your designated go live date of Aug. 1.
Which, I might add, did not happen, because on July 20, 2026, the night that Elkton voted to cancel its contract with Flock, I visually observed the camera located at McGaheysville Elementary actively scanning due to the IR ring on the camera lighting up as traffic passed by.
What happened to that data, Sheriff? Oh, that’s right, Flock collected it, even when they weren’t supposed to be collecting that data until Aug. 1.
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