DEFLOCK OKC August 18: the council renewed Flock, 5 to 3. See exactly what happened, in the chief's own words. What happened →
Get Involved

Take Action

Every voice matters. Here are concrete ways you can help bring accountability to surveillance in Oklahoma City.

Tell City Council: NO ALPRs in OKC - Oklahomans for Privacy
Coalition Position

Get the FLOCK out of OKC.

Surveillance does not make Oklahoma City safer. It is mass data collection on every resident who drives a car, operated by an unaccountable private vendor. We are not asking for better Flock policies. We are asking for Flock and any replacement vendor to be removed entirely.

Graphics by Oklahomans for Privacy. Use freely.

August 18, 2026 · The vote

The council renewed Flock. The fight didn't end.

On August 18 the City Council voted 5 to 3 to renew the contract, over a chamber of residents who were unanimously against it. We recorded exactly what happened: an hour of the chief reading the vendor's own playbook, the things he got wrong about the cameras, the questions he refused to answer, and who on the council was even paying attention. Residents had shown up all along, more than 100 at the May town hall and unprompted on June 16 (8 of 10 speakers) and July 7 (five more). The renewal runs one year. It comes back around.

See What Happened The May Town Hall
CONTRACT RENEWED · AUGUST 18, 2026

Get the FLOCK out of OKC.
Renewed for now. Not for good.

On August 18, 2026, the City Council voted to renew the Flock contract, adding only a narrow federal-sharing amendment. Three members voted no: Cooper (Ward 2), Hamon (Ward 6), and Pennington (Ward 7), and more than two dozen residents spoke that morning, not one in favor. The renewal is a one-year term, retroactive to July 1 and running through June 30, 2027, so it comes back around. In the meantime the cameras stay up, the case against them stands, and the public record keeps growing. Same coalition. Same demand. Same answer: no.

Tell City Council:

01
Do not renew the Flock contract.
02
Remove the Flock cameras.
03
Do not use another ALPR vendor.
We don't need them. They're a privacy concern no matter what company owns them.
Easiest action · ~60 seconds

Add your name to the petition.

OKC residents are signing a formal petition - delivered directly to all eight council members, the City Manager, and the Mayor - demanding the city end the Flock contract and reject any replacement ALPR vendor. Hosted by ACLU of Oklahoma; the signatures come from us.

Sign the Petition →
Contact OKC Officials Directly
Mayor David Holt
City Manager Craig Freeman
Your Ward Council Member
Find your ward →
All 8 wards listed on okc.gov
Resource

Email Template

Editable letter to send your council member. 5 minutes.

DOCX | PDF
Resource

Show-Up Sheet

3-minute talking points + logistics for council comments.

DOCX | PDF
Any Tuesday

Speak at any meeting

OKC Council meets most Tuesdays at 8:30 AM, 200 N. Walker Ave, 3rd Floor. Anyone can sign up for "Citizens to be Heard" and speak for three minutes, agenda or not.

Check Agenda →
1

Show up at a council meeting

The Council renewed the contract on August 18, 2026, over sustained opposition. Public comment does not end with the vote: OKC Council meets most Tuesdays at 8:30 AM, and anyone can speak for three minutes whether or not Flock is on the agenda. Show up, give your name and ward, and say you want this contract ended at the next renewal. A coalition of OKC residents, clergy, and small-government advocates has shown up at every meeting to this point. Three council members - James Cooper (Ward 2), JoBeth Hamon (Ward 6), and Camal Pennington (Ward 7) - voted no. Residents stood up on June 16 (8 of 10 speakers against Flock) and again on July 7 (five more), both times with the contract off the agenda. That pressure does not stop because one vote did.

200 N. Walker Ave, 3rd Floor - arrive 20-30 minutes early. Sign up to speak under "Citizens to be Heard." You get three minutes. You don't need to be an expert. Just say where you live, that you oppose renewal, and why. Read our show-up sheet (linked in the resources above) for talking points and logistics.

2

Contact Your Ward Council Member

Three members voted to end the contract. Five voted to keep it. It comes up for renewal again, and they answer to you in between. Find your ward representative below and send a short, specific message:

  • You're a resident in their ward (give your street name if you're comfortable)
  • You oppose the Flock Safety contract and want it ended at the next renewal
  • OKCPD's own March memo admitted it had no oversight framework, and the audit it now advertises, it won't let residents verify
  • You want to know why they voted the way they did, and how they will vote at the next renewal

If your representative is Cooper (Ward 2), Hamon (Ward 6), or Pennington (Ward 7), thank them for voting no and ask how you can help. If it is Carter (Ward 1), Avers (Ward 3), Stone (Ward 4), or Hinkle (Ward 5), they voted to renew, so ask them to explain that vote and to end the contract at the next renewal. Stonecipher (Ward 8) was absent for the vote, so ask him where he stands.

Find Your Elected Officials
3

Spread the Word

Most OKC residents don't know these cameras exist, let alone that the oversight the city now advertises is one residents aren't allowed to verify. Share this site, share the news coverage, talk to your neighbors. The Flock contract renews quietly every year. The more people paying attention, the harder that becomes.

4

File Your Own Records Requests

Everything we've found came from public records requests that any resident can file for free. Use JustFOIA or submit directly to the city. Ask about Flock search logs, data sharing with outside agencies, or query volumes. The Oklahoma Open Records Act gives you the right to this information - and every new request builds the public record.

See Our Requests & Templates
5

Talk to Media

KOSU, Free Press OKC, KOCO 5, The Gayly, Hoodline, KGOU, News9, KFOR, and Carscoops have all covered this story. If you have contacts at local outlets that haven't yet engaged, point them to the May 27 town hall recap and the documented evidence on this site. The angle is simple: a surveillance system with zero published oversight, confirmed in writing by the department's own memo, and renewed on August 18 over sustained public opposition. Reporters can reach us at DeFlockOKC@proton.me.

6

Join the National Movement

More than 125 communities have ended Flock contracts, and the pace accelerated sharply in the last week of August 2026. Two of them are in Oklahoma: Marietta's council voted Flock down unanimously on August 20, two days after Oklahoma City renewed, and Coweta declined to renew on August 11. Guthrie terminated theirs earlier. The ACLU and the Institute for Justice - organizations that rarely agree on anything - are aligned in opposing Flock. DeFlockOKC is part of a growing network of communities pushing back. Connect at DeFlock.me, explore the DeflockYourCity Toolkit, read The Case, or reach out to us directly. This movement is bigger than one city.

Who's behind this

We're neighbors, doing what we can.

DeFlockOKC is not a company, a nonprofit, or a funded campaign. We take no donations and no corporate money, and we cover what little it costs ourselves. We are Oklahoma City residents who do this in our spare time, and everything here is built from public records. We work alongside a coalition of Oklahoma organizations and fellow residents:

ACLU of Oklahoma →

Defends civil liberties across Oklahoma. Hosts the petition and co-hosted the May town hall.

Oklahomans for Privacy

A grassroots group of Oklahomans focused on privacy and surveillance, behind much of the coalition's graphics and outreach.

Foundation for Liberating Minds →

An Oklahoma City nonprofit building community safety through education and organizing.

Home Base OK →

Oklahoma City organizing for community power, transparency, and safety.

The work has grown well beyond what a few people can keep up with, and we would genuinely welcome the help. If you have time, a skill, or just want to be part of it, we would love to hear from you. You do not need to be an expert. Curiosity and a little time are plenty.

Email us: DeFlockOKC@proton.me
Organizing now

The vote ended. The organizing didn't.

Since the August 18 renewal, other people have picked this up in ways we are not running and do not control. We are listing them because you asked where to plug in, and because a 5 to 3 vote is not the end of a question this many residents are still asking.

These are independent efforts. DeFlockOKC does not organize them, fund them, or speak for them, and listing one is not an endorsement of everything it does. Vet them the way you would vet us: ask what they can show you.

Ballot initiative · Signature drive forming

Put it in front of the voters instead

Jacob Cordova is organizing a citywide initiative petition to ban Oklahoma City's use of Flock and other automated license plate readers, taking the question to the ballot rather than back to the council that just renewed the contract. He previously volunteered on the successful campaign to ban red-light cameras in Arlington, Texas. The effort is recruiting people to collect signatures, staff petition locations, and organize.

Worth knowing what this takes. Oklahoma law sets a municipal initiative petition at signatures from registered city voters equal to 25 percent of the turnout in the last general municipal election, gathered within 90 days (11 O.S. § 15-103). The City reports that 38,860 votes were cast in the February 10, 2026 mayoral election (okc.gov), which puts the bar around 9,715 valid signatures. The City Clerk sets the official figure, and anyone joining should get it from the Clerk before a single petition sheet is printed.

Two things follow from that math. The bar is pegged to turnout, and turnout was dismal: fewer than 39,000 people voted for mayor in a city of roughly 700,000. And 9,715 is the number that has to survive verification, so a serious drive collects well past it to absorb signatures the Clerk rejects. This is real work, done in 90 days, by people standing outside grocery stores. It is also the one path to a decision on Flock that does not run through the council that just renewed it.

Join the organizing group →
Still open · 2,200+ signed

The petition did not close with the vote

The contract runs one year and returns to council in 2027. Every name added between now and then is a number the next vote has to look at. The three demands have not changed: do not renew, remove the cameras, and do not contract with a replacement vendor.

Sign the petition →
Running something?

Tell us and we will list it

Neighborhood groups, accountability groups, and ward-level organizing are all moving on this and most of it never reaches a news story. If you are running something in the metro, send it over with a link and we will add it here.

Send it to us →
If You Speak Up

Talking Points for Public Comment

Use these facts - all sourced from public records - when speaking to council, writing letters, or talking to media.

If council or a neighbor reaches for whataboutism - "it's just cameras," "you're already on camera everywhere," "Google is worse" - point them to Common Questions. Every version of that argument, side by side, with the actual difference.

•

Lead with the memo

“In March, OKCPD admitted in writing it had no audit procedure at all. Only after residents started filing records requests did one appear, and when we asked to see it, the city denied us the log. They will tell you they audit every 30 days. They will not let you check. An audit no one is allowed to see is not oversight. That's not my claim - the March 10, 2026 memo is on official letterhead.”

•

Question the vendor

“Flock's leadership claims their platform has never been hacked. Independent researchers have documented numerous confirmed vulnerabilities and found cameras streaming live to the internet - including one pointed at a children's playground. Flock employees were caught accessing gym cameras, including a children's gymnastics room. When researchers reported these findings, Flock's CEO emailed police departments lumping critics in with 'activist groups who want to defund the police, weaken public safety, and normalize lawlessness.' This is the company we're trusting with our data.”

•

Quote their own rules back to them

“OKCPD's Operations Manual says ALPR data will not be shared as part of a law enforcement information database. Flock's entire business model is a shared database used by 5,000+ agencies. Their own CEO says cities should have published use policies and regular audits. OKC now says it audits every 30 days, but when a resident asked to see the log, the city refused. A standard you're not allowed to check is not a standard we're meeting.”

•

Call out the manual rewrite

“OKCPD's Operations Manual said ALPR data 'will not be shared as part of a law enforcement information database.' The cameras ran under that rule since 2023. Then in 2026 - the year Flock became a national story and residents started filing records requests - the department quietly rewrote that sentence to allow sharing with a single System Administrator's approval. Their explanation to KOSU: policies are 'periodically reviewed and updated.' A review that only ever weakens the rules, and only once people start reading them, is not routine.”

•

Federal standard, unanswered locally

“Section 2A.19 of the federal MUTCD requires sign and marker supports in the clear zone to be crashworthy - meaning breakaway, yielding, or shielded by a barrier. Safety advocates in Maine, Colorado, Tennessee, and Iowa have documented Flock camera poles installed in the clear zone without that hardware. My question tonight is simple. Before we renew this contract, can the city produce documentation showing that every OKC Flock pole is either outside the clear zone or uses crashworthy hardware meeting that federal standard, or not?”

•

Name the pattern

“Officers in Wisconsin have been charged with using Flock to stalk romantic partners. In San Francisco, outside agencies ran 1.6 million unauthorized searches. Federal agencies accessed Mountain View's Flock data for 17 months without local police knowing. Oshkosh rescinded their contract within 24 hours over Flock lying to council. In July, LAPD declined to renew its Flock contract over data and civil-liberties concerns. More than 125 communities have now ended their contracts. Two days after this council voted to renew, the city council in Marietta, Oklahoma voted Flock down unanimously, after their police chief walked in supporting the cameras and changed his mind on the spot when Flock's own representative told the room the data is kept indefinitely. He said what he would not support was retention beyond the 30 days they had agreed to. That is the question I want answered here: what was this council told about retention before it voted? Oklahoma City renewed anyway, over sustained opposition. Reversing that at the next renewal is the fight now.”

•

If they play the murder card

“In 1965, American police cleared roughly nine in ten murders with no cameras and no databases. Today, with every surveillance tool ever built, the national rate is barely above half. Cameras do not solve murders. Witnesses, community trust, and detectives solve murders. And a system sold to this council as a license plate checker can only help a murder case by doing the one thing we were told it would not do: reconstruct anyone's movements, retroactively, without a warrant. When the department cites a case, remember its own written answer from July 10: no records exist linking Flock to case outcomes. The anecdote is unverifiable by their own admission.”

•

Close with the ask

“I am asking this council to do three things: do not renew the Flock contract, remove the cameras, and do not contract with any other ALPR vendor. We don't need them. Surveillance does not make OKC safer. Thank you.”

A Note on Vandalism

Cutting the cameras down does not make them go away.

DeFlockOKC does not advocate for or condone the destruction of Flock property. The reason is not that we respect the vendor. It is that we understand the math.

01

The city already paid for the cameras.

When one is cut down, Flock sends new hardware, invoices OKC again, and charges for reinstallation. National reporting on the vandalism wave puts pole replacement alone at $500 to $2,000, with the damaged camera billed on top. The bolt cutters do not send Flock an invoice. They send one to the city. Every destroyed camera is a second sale, and Flock is the vendor that profits from it.

02

The replacements go up fast.

Every documented case of Flock cameras being cut down in the U.S. has ended the same way - within days or weeks, new hardware is on the same pole. It is a temporary hole in the network, not a permanent removal.

03

It hands the department a political talking point.

Every destroyed camera becomes evidence that "vandals" oppose ALPRs, which makes it easier for OKCPD to keep them.

The action that actually removes these cameras is the one that costs Flock a customer instead of another sale: get council to end the contract at renewal. They renewed it on August 18; the next renewal is the one to organize for. Speak up, sign the petition, keep the pressure public. That is the fix that lasts.

The Hard Line

Get the FLOCK out of OKC.

Surveillance does not make Oklahoma City safer. It is mass data collection on every resident who drives a car, operated by an unaccountable private vendor, with documented harms in every jurisdiction it has been deployed. We are not asking for better policies on Flock. We are asking for Flock to be removed and for no replacement vendor to take its place.

01

Do not renew the Flock contract.

The Council renewed the contract on August 18, 2026, retroactive to July 1 and running through June 30, 2027. At the next renewal, the Council should vote no and let the contract lapse.

02

Remove the Flock cameras.

Direct Flock Safety to cease operating and physically remove all of its ALPR hardware from public infrastructure in Oklahoma City.

03

Do not contract with another ALPR vendor.

If Flock goes, Axon or another vendor cannot be quietly signed in its place. We don't need them. They are a privacy concern no matter what company owns them. If OKC wants this kind of system, it must hold a public hearing first - and we will be there to argue it doesn't.

If you believe in small government, this is small government. A private corporation has built a mass surveillance system that the government itself would not be allowed to build directly. Police agencies pay the corporation to access it. The data leaves city limits. Public records law can't touch it. This is big government, wearing a corporate badge.

DeFlock America · Field Guide

Live somewhere else? Bring this fight to your hometown.

Flock sells the same product in roughly 5,000 American cities - and the harms are the same in every one of them. We've published a field guide with the exact FOIA templates we used, council strategy, allies to find, and downloadable starter packs that work in any state. Use it to push back in your town. Send your findings back so we can connect residents working on this everywhere.

DeFlock Your City →