Plymouth Voted to Drop Flock. The Cameras Were Still in Place.
The Minnesota city reportedly waited more than a month for acknowledgment of its request to end the contract. A separate dispute in nearby Dayton raises the same practical issue: how a city makes its decision stick.
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Nov 1, 22:00 UTC ·
641 words
Plymouth, Minnesota, voted to end its Flock Safety camera contract in September, but its police chief said he ordered cameras unplugged after a reported week without acknowledgment. [1]
The city reportedly received no acknowledgment from Flock for more than a month after sending its cancellation request, while the cameras remained in place. The dispute puts a practical test behind a public vote: whether a city can promptly stop a monitoring system it has decided to abandon. [1]
Plymouth Police Chief Eric Fadden told The Drive that, after more than a week without a response, he directed staff to disconnect the cameras' power cords to ensure they would not function or record license plates, according to The Verge. His account describes a physical intervention by city staff while the cancellation request went unanswered. [1]
The central accounts remain unconfirmed. Plymouth's contract and cancellation notice have not been made available in this account, and neither the legal authority over the equipment nor whether disconnecting it stopped all recording has been established. Flock did not immediately respond to The Verge's request for comment. [1]
A vote and a switch are different things
Those are separate timelines. The month-long wait describes the company's reported response to the cancellation request. It does not establish that the cameras recorded license plates throughout that period. Equipment can remain mounted after its power has been disconnected.
Fadden's account places the immediate operational decision with the police department: he said he directed staff to cut power. That is narrower than establishing who owned the cameras, who could control them remotely or what either party was entitled to do under the agreement. [1]
For a city ending a surveillance program, acknowledgment, shutdown and removal are three different milestones. An acknowledgment confirms that a request has reached the supplier. A shutdown stops collection. Removal takes the equipment away.
A clean exit needs each to be dealt with, rather than treating the council vote as the last step.
Dayton reports an unwanted restart
A separate dispute in Dayton, Minnesota, concerns a camera reportedly returned to service after the city had told Flock to stop work. According to a statement the local government posted on Facebook, Dayton told the company on September 18, 2026, that the program was on hold and no work orders should be completed. The city said a camera was nevertheless put back into service without authorization. [1]
Flock reportedly acknowledged Dayton's removal request and told the city that taking the equipment away could take up to 60 days. That differs from Plymouth's account of receiving no acknowledgment for more than a month. [1]
Dayton's allegation concerns an action taken against its instructions. Plymouth's concerns a request left unanswered. The two should not be collapsed into a single account of what Flock did, but both concern the gap between a city's decision and the equipment's operation.
A removal timetable alone would not settle Dayton's complaint. Leaving an inactive camera mounted while arranging collection is one thing. Putting it back into service after instructions to pause the program, as Dayton alleges happened, raises a separate question of authorization.
The unfinished part of cancellation
The Verge described another cancellation dispute at Elgin Community College in Illinois, where the college sought to end its contract and Flock did not remove the cameras at that time. The account supplies no comparable timeline for that case. [1]
Together, the incidents make the exit terms of monitoring contracts a matter of public control. Cities need to know who will stop collection, how that shutdown will be verified and when the hardware will leave. A supplier's collection schedule cannot substitute for an operational shutdown procedure.
The next concrete development to establish in Plymouth is whether Flock has answered the termination request and whether the cameras have been removed. Until then, the last reported action by the city's police chief was an instruction to disconnect their power. [1]
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