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For weeks, Verona, Wisconsin tried to get Flock to remove the three automated license plate cameras that its city council had voted to stop using. Flock told city employees not to remove the cameras, and a Flock employee told city officials that they were unsure whether the cameras could be remotely disabled, which led the town to decide to put black plastic trash bags over them until Flock eventually removed the cameras itself, according to emails obtained using a public records request by 404 Media.
The emails give insight into the process cities face
while deFlocking themselves
after voting not to renew a contract with the AI surveillance company. As we’ve previously reported, multiple cities around the country have decided to put
black trash bags over their Flock cameras
while they wait for them to be removed; this is in part because, until the cameras are physically removed by Flock, cities are unsure whether they have the legal right to remove the cameras themselves and are not sure whether they can disable their recording operations. The emails show Verona city officials telling each other that they had made multiple requests to Flock to have the cameras removed, and show a work order from Flock in which the cameras were set to have maintenance performed on them rather than being removed. 
In February, Verona mayor Luke Diaz
told the Wisconsin Examiner
that Flock didn’t remove the cameras even after several requests: “They weren’t removing them,” he said. “We kind of looked at the contract, talked it over amongst staff, and the thing we felt most comfortable with was just covering

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