Longtime Greene County Prosecutor Jarrod Holtsclaw saw the crime-solving benefits of roadside surveillance cameras that take pictures of license plates and track passing vehicles.
But he didn’t want the citizens whose cars and trucks would be monitored, and whose property taxes would pay the $230,000 bill, to know all the details about a proposed contract with Flock Safety, the nation’s largest provider of the devices.
County officials eventually did publicly approve installation of the automatic license plate readers, but the debate over the technology is ongoing — across the state and within Greene County.
“Every elected official that supports these cameras should apologize to everyone who wore the uniform and fought for our freedoms,” Linton Mayor John Preble told FPI News when asked about the cameras in Greene County, where the Republican’s city of 5,200 residents is located.
“There’s a potential for misuse of these systems … And they shouldn’t have been trying to do it behind the scenes.”
Closed-door meeting sought
Holtsclaw floated the idea with county officials in an Oct. 7, 2024, email to auditor Heather Perry and attorney Marvin Abshire.
“I would like to be added to the October council meeting agenda to request an appropriation for the purchase of equipment for use by all county law enforcement agencies,” Holtsclaw wrote. “I would like to discuss this equipment and its capabilities with the council in an executive session so that the general public is not aware of some of the capabilities of the equipment.”
Nine days later, news had leaked. County Council member Karen Abrams sent Holsclaw and others an email saying the county commissioners’ president had heard about the proposal from a constituent.
“While I understand that the request for these items was desired to be kept choose hold, I wanted to let everyone know that Nathan (Abrams) was contacted today by a member of the public who already knew about this … not sure how he learned about the subject but it appears it is out there in the public.”
Nearly two weeks after that, Holtsclaw responded to Abrams. “I think once people have more information about it they will support it,” he wrote.
But he was still reluctant to present the Flock contract to the county council, worried he would have to “battle some people from the public and then have the council not support it.”
Holtsclaw told FPI News he wanted to discuss the new technology with officials in a closed meeting “to explain to the council what Flock could do for our investigations without tipping off criminals of its capabilities by discussing it publicly.”
Prosecutor defends roadside cameras
No closed meetings were held. Instead, the council formed a study committee and tried to address citizens’ concerns.
The morning after the committee’s first meeting in November 2024, Holtsclaw sent an email to a Flock sales employee.
“This issue we have is one councilman is spooked by public opinion and possible lawsuits.” He and police officers on the committee, he wrote, “did our best to persuade him,” but the councilman wanted another meeting before voting that December. “I think we will have the votes to pass it and I think he will fall in line.”
Three weeks before the contract approval, Preble let Holtsclaw know he wasn’t happy about the cameras, echoing concerns from others that the surveillance infringes on personal freedoms.
“I understand the potential value to the police, but at the cost of everyone else’s privacy?” Preble wrote in a December 2024 email. “I ask that you continue to keep the roadways in Greene County free of these cameras and systems.” He paraphrased a Benjamin Franklin quote, writing “those who give up freedom for security deserve neither.”
In January 2025, following county council approval, Greene County’s three commissioners OK’d a five-year contract with Flock Safety for 20 license-plate-reader camera systems. Months passed before they were up and running.
Perry, the county auditor, said long equipment backlogs and installation delays reduced the initial $425,000 expense to $229,875 for 15 stationary cameras and five that can be moved to different locations.
Holtsclaw acknowledged to FPI News the privacy concerns related to the cameras. “There have been instances across the country where police officers have abused the system and used it to track people they shouldn’t,” Holtsclaw said. “I support termination for any officer that commits that type of violation.”
Officers around the state face criminal charges for abusing the system. In September, five Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers were accused of misusing Flock cameras to track spouses, romantic partners and others. A 31-year-old Jackson County Sheriff’s Department deputy recently resigned after being charged with conducting more than 2,000 searches of his girlfriend’s license plate.
Holtsclaw defends the technology as a “valuable tool to have in investigating serious crimes.”
“It can provide location data for suspects quickly, far faster than other techniques,” he said. “It can also help us to determine who is telling the truth.”
Every three months, the Greene County sheriff’s office issues a report listing searches of the system and linking them to a specific case where the vehicle was involved. The 2026 second quarter report shows 65 searches done by seven of the 19 department members who had access. Five searches with no case numbers listed were forwarded to the sheriff’s chief deputy for review.
The county has three years left in its Flock contract. Holtsclaw expects to ask for its renewal. “Next time we will have had four-plus years of actual experience and these governing bodies can decide whether to extend the contract or end it.”
He cited local cases where license plate data from the system was used in homicide, rape, hit-and-run and burglary investigations.
Before Greene County’s cameras were installed in 2025, he used Flock data from other counties to help convict a man of killing a woman and her 14-year-old son, then burying the bodies at a coal mine, and a registered sex offender who traveled from California to Indiana and had sex with a 12-year-old girl he met online.
A different route
Meanwhile, other Indiana communities are backing away from Flock over privacy concerns.
In 2024, Linton’s police chief sought permission to discuss a proposal for license plate reading cameras during a city council session closed to the public.
“I said ‘no.’ I told him there would be none of them in the city,” Preble said, criticizing Holtsclaw for pursuing the technology. The mayor can’t do anything about the Flock camera on Ind. 54 near Linton’s Walmart since it’s on a state highway.
Bloomington’s City Council voted Oct. 14 to outlaw roadside license plate readers. In April, after clamor from citizens upset about the cameras, Mayor Kerry Thomson announced the city wasn’t renewing its 2024 Flock contract.
Officials in Fort Wayne and Chesterton and in Marshall, Starke, Kosciusko and Noble counties have also recently ended contracts with Flock. Preble applauds their action.
“Just because you can (have the technology) doesn’t mean you should,” Preble’s email to Holtsclaw protesting the cameras said. “Don’t open a door that is better left closed.”
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FPI News reporter Laura Lane covers the people and issues of rural Indiana. Reach her at 812-760-1540 or laura.lane@fpinews.org.
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