New Hanover County has released redacted records from law enforcement’s use of Flock Safety, showing that a vast majority of searches conducted on the system originated outside of the New Hanover County Sheriff's Office.
Millions of searches have been conducted on New Hanover's Flock system since January 2025. Flock license plate reader cameras, of which New Hanover operates 19 through a $219,000 contract, capture license plates and vehicle characteristics that “helps investigators identify leads and connect related incidents,” according to the company’s website.
The records — which show that the system has been used to aid investigations into a variety of offenses including drugs, theft and homicide — provide little insight into who initiated
the searches and accessed the returned data.
What the records show
Since January 2025, nearly 3 million searches have been run on the county’s system, according to Network Audits provided by the county.
A summary of the sheriff’s office searches accounts for 13,322 searches from January to June of this year, while the total number of searches is 338,431 for the same time frame.
Public Information Officer Lt. Jerry Brewer later confirmed that the majority of the searches included in the dataset reflected searches by organizations across the country. New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office searches account for only 3.9% of all search traffic on the county’s Flock cameras in the first half of 2026.
The name of every organization that ran searches on New Hanover's Flock system was redacted in records provided by the county.
Mark Spencer Williams is an attorney who runs DeFlockILM and has filed a mediation request urging the county to release the names of the agencies. County staff told Williams, as well as the StarNews, that the records "are not New Hanover County’s to release and would need to be obtained from Flock," due to the data containing information related to work involving other law enforcement agencies.
“Following a review of N.C. General Statutes between New Hanover County’s Legal Department and the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office, it was determined that G.S. 132-1.4 and 132-1.7 places clear definitions on the scope of information that is releasable regarding several factors, including sensitive public information, investigative material and custodial priority,” county communications staff said in a statement.
By contrast, the town of Kure Beach released its Network Audit from March 1 to May 31 with the organization names unredacted. Williams analyzed the records and found that 3,499 organizations accessed the town’s four-camera system, with 93.6% of searches originating outside of North Carolina.
The summary shows that 37.4% of the 13,322 searches concerned drugs/narcotics, while 17.5% were related to larceny/theft offenses and another 17.5% were labeled “other.” Motor vehicle theft made up 6% of all searches, while all other categories were less than 3% of the data.
Beyond general concerns of surveillance, Williams said that when the data is used in other states, it loses some of the protections enforced in North Carolina. N.C. General Statute § 20-183.32 (a) states that “shall not be preserved for more than 90 days after the date the data is captured,” except when preservation is requested or arrest warrants are issued.
“In North Carolina, only law enforcement can access it, whereas in Texas, there’s no rule,” Williams said.
On Aug. 10, the sheriff's office launched a Flock transparency portal, noting that it had dropped its data retention period from 90 to 30 days. The site lists the number of searches from the sheriff's office in the past 30 days but does not include data from outside organizations. Williams described the statistic as "misleading."
What comes next
Williams' petition to remove Flock cameras from New Hanover had garnered over 2,800 signatures as of Aug. 11. Under a nationally coordinated movement involving more than 75 cities, DeFlockILM is encouraging residents to share their concerns during the public comment period at the next commissioner meeting.
The meeting will take place at the New Hanover County Courthouse on Aug. 17 at 4 p.m.
Two commissioners, LeAnn Pierce and Dane Scalise, have already indicated that they would like the county to review its Flock system via comments on social media. Pierce said that she was "concerned and want answers to some critical questions before I support any future funding for this program." Scalise echoed the sentiment.
The remaining three commissioners did not respond to StarNews requests for comment on the county's Flock program.
Daniel Sheehan covers New Hanover County for the StarNews. Reach him at dsheehan@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Sheriff's office accounts for 3.9% of New Hanover Flock searches | Exclusive
