Wisconsin Cops Used Flock Over 100 Times To Track a Navy Veteran After He Lawfully Recorded a Traffic Stop

· Reason

While standing in a private parking lot in Sussex, Wisconsin, on May 4, 2025, Napoleon Jones witnessed a traffic stop made by an out-of-county police officer. "It just didn't sit right with me," Jones told TMJ4 News, a local NBC News affiliate. "So I did what I legally could do, and I walked over and recorded it." 

Jones, a United States Navy veteran, was well within his rights to record the police stop. But even though he recorded from a safe distance without interfering, that didn't stop the Waukesha County Sheriff's deputy, Brandon Shayhorn, from later unlawfully stopping and arresting Jones. 

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After Shayhorn completed the traffic stop, Jones returned to his vehicle. But before Jones could exit the parking lot, Shayhorn turned on his lights and initiated a second stop, claiming Jones' temporary license plate, displayed in the rearview window, was unreadable, reports TMJ4 News. Shayhorn demanded to see Jones' driver's license, but Jones refused, arguing that he'd been unlawfully pulled over on private property. Video clips of the encounter show the deputy opening Jones' door and pulling him from his vehicle.

Jones was subsequently arrested "for resisting and obstructing," according to a federal lawsuit he filed against the arresting officers and police department. But after being held in custody for five hours, he was released with no citations or criminal charges. An internal post-arrest memorandum reviewed by Reason revealed that Shayhorn's supervisor informed him shortly after the arrest that he'd, in fact, illegally stopped Jones, and he therefore could not compel Jones to produce his identification. 

The next day, Jones filed a citizen's complaint against Shayhorn for the illegal stop and said he believed Shayhorn retaliated against him for exercising his First Amendment right to record. Jones then sought legal counsel to pursue claims against the arresting officers and the police department for his unlawful stop, detention, and arrest. 

While litigating those claims, Jones' attorney, Nate Cade, found something odd: A single photograph of his client's vehicle, provided by Flock Safety, dated May 30, 2025. Provided in the sheriff's office's response to Jones' complaint "was a single photograph of [Jones'] white vehicle, a white BMW," Cade told TMJ4 News. "The incident occurred on May 4, so that starts me thinking, what's going on? Why do you have a photograph of his vehicle 25 days later?" Cade continued. 

Further investigation revealed over 100 Flock searches for a white BMW in the weeks following Jones' unlawful arrest. Some of the searches were made by Shayhorn himself, a clear conflict of interest. When asked about the searches during a deposition hearing, Shayhorn and others replied they'd been ordered to conduct the searches by their lieutenant in connection with Jones' citizen complaint, according to TMJ4 News. 

"I was extremely shocked," Jones told TMJ4 News, "I couldn't understand why or how that would even be a possibility from what happened at the beginning of May would lead me to be searched in the Flock system because from my understanding, it's for criminal stuff." 

In July 2026, Jones amended his complaint to include the additional officers who searched for his vehicle without "a legitimate law enforcement purpose" as required by the county's user agreement. There was no Flock camera in the parking lot where the unlawful arrest took place, and Jones was not accused nor suspected of any wrongdoing when the investigative searches took place. Indeed, Jones alleges that the officers instead used Flock to track Jones "in retaliation for exercising his First Amendment right of recording a traffic stop" and as a "means to attempt to find a potential crime against Jones." 

At a time when police use of automated license plate readers is facing fierce public backlash for invading Americans' privacy, Jones' case serves as a reminder of just how easily government power can be abused without proper oversight. While the officers involved aren't being accused of attention-grabbing misuses of Flock Safety—like, say, using the tech to outlandishly stalk their romantic interests—their alleged abuses are still concerning. If lawfully filming a police officer can set off a weekslong surveillance campaign against the videographer, how can Americans expect other constitutionally protected speech and actions to not be met with similar retaliation?

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