Five Indianapolis Police Officers Charged in Misuse of Flock License-Plate Cameras

The charges came after reporting by The Washington Post, and County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said, "A lot of this was initiated by The Washington Post." The Post reported Wednesday that nationwide, at least 100 police department employees have been charged with or accused of misusing license-plate readers for unauthorized purposes. Citing past investigations based on thousands of pages of police and court records, The Post said that in many cases officers used Flock's roadside cameras to track the location of romantic partners and exes.

The Indianapolis Police Department said one officer had already resigned, while the four other officers were suspended and recommended for termination. Chief Tanya Terry said she suspended one officer while the department investigated possible misuse and conducted a systemwide audit of the city's 301-camera Flock system. Mears said Wednesday that the audit led to the discovery of more widespread abuse.

Mears said the department's findings highlight the vast power Flock cameras give police officers and raise questions about whether the government should do more to prevent misuse. "Many of the proposed guardrails and the things that have been proposed would not have prevented the behaviors and actions we see here today," Mears said. "Does there need to be independent oversight? Does there need to be judicial oversight of the Flock camera system?"

The Post, using publicly available information, found that one of the officers charged Wednesday appeared to have relied on Flock cameras to track vehicles used by his wife and two close personal acquaintances, searching the plates 3,759 times over a 10-month period, an average of about 12 lookups per day.

Another Indianapolis officer, Schultz, an 18-year veteran of the department, was accused of using Flock to track his ex-wife and women he met while on duty or in public. He was charged with multiple counts of official misconduct and two counts of stalking. Prosecutors said Schultz told one woman he was an FBI agent, began texting her and showing up at places she frequented, including her gym and a school function with her daughter. Prosecutors said he arrived at her gym within an hour of her at least nine times between June 12 and Aug. 1 of this year. Another woman met Schultz after her car was stolen from a mall parking lot, and he began sending flirty text messages later that night, according to prosecutors. The two dated briefly, and Schultz later looked up where the woman went on dates with another man. Schultz searched the plates of a third woman 178 times and also frequently showed up where she was, including her gym, a Smoothie King and a Walmart earlier this month, prosecutors said.

A third officer, Binford, told investigators he had used the log-in credentials of another officer who had logged in to Binford's laptop during a field training exercise, according to the report. Binford searched the plate of his ex-wife more than 1,000 times between April 2024 and April 2025.

Terry said in an interview last month that Indianapolis police had no regular practice of auditing officers' Flock searches until recently. The department's investigation into the tool's misuse has been "a learning process for us," she said at the time.