Posted on 08/08/2026 8:44:28 AM PDT by DFG
Brookfield police pulled someone over, guns drawn, after a Flock camera flagged their car for a Milwaukee homicide. It turned out to be a mix-up involving the wrong person.
Flock camera error
What we know:
It happened at around 4:45 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 6. Video from I-94 in Waukesha County shows multiple officers with guns drawn – and a passenger sticking their hands out the window.
Police pulled the car over after a Flock camera flagged it for a Milwaukee homicide. But when Brookfield Police called the Milwaukee Police Department, MPD said they no longer needed the car or the people inside, so officers let them go.
FOX6 News reached out to MPD to learn why that car was still active in the Flock system. The department said it was not a Flock issue, but a personnel issue – staff failed to remove a wanted vehicle alert from the system.
Brookfield Police Chief Christopher Garcia maintains that the officers' actions were "consistent" with the information available to them.
Interview with Amber Newell
What they're saying:
Amber Newell, the woman who was pulled over, spoke with FOX6. She said this is not the first time this happened to her this week.
"I haven’t been asleep since this has happened," Newell said. "Every time I close my eyes, all I can see is guns."
Newell is still shaken up from Thursday.
(Excerpt) Read more at fox6now.com ...
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
The financial amount in Amber Newell’s lawsuit for violating her civil rights should be some number following by a lot of zeros!!
Paging all the FR Flock cultists, is this the society you want, Flock Swatting, guess the risk of killing innocent Mothers and Fathers is worth it if is might save even 1 child on an amber alert?
Only a fool thinks we won’t be seeing dead innocent drivers because of Flock.
This is what Benjamin Franklin’s meant when he said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety,” emphasizes the importance of maintaining fundamental freedoms over sacrificing them for short-term security.
I think enough innocent people have been arrested. It’s time for these cameras to go.
They prefer safety or freedom, regardless of how many innocent people get caught on camera.
[...a mix-up involving the wrong person...]
Things like this happened long before FLOCK cameras. My wife and I were pulled over and we stopped in a parking lot. 2 more units flew up and blocked us in from the front. I didn’t see any guns but the police stayed behind their doors with their hands down (on their guns?). One officer checked our license and insurance and then sent us on our way.
Amber Newell, the woman pulled over in this case, was pulled over last Monday as well, by officers with guns drawn, in Milwaukee because Flock flagged her car. Milwaukee PD failed to clear her in the Flock system after the first mistake, so she had to go through it all again a week later.
Unfortunately it’s not just cars and license plates. These cameras are everywhere and monitor far more than traffic. Add the FLOCK drones and infrared facial recognition and the errors are even worse.
What kind of safety was Benjamin Franklin referring to at the time? The concept is far reaching. Domestic tranquility is one of the most fundamental goals “We, the People,” seek to fulfill *as* a people, and safety plays into that goal in a big way.
Bad actors will no doubt take advantage of any means to harm, but draconian decisions and policies may do more harm than good.
Liberty certainly involves risks, but risks are rarely taken in total disregard for safety.
I treat the FLOCK camera issue as a robust opportunity to debate individual vs. corporate life and how the two should ultimately work in tandem rather than exclusively.
Oh, and the “essential Liberty” to which Franklin refers deserves careful thought, too. We have a tendency to widen ideas when original intent may not be so wide. On the face of it, Franklin’s words enjoin wider application, but it would be prudent to understand the original context and meaning before throwing surveillance completely under the bus.
FLOCK cameras do not search and seize. People who do so without warrant should be prosecuted. There *will* be cases when people are hurt due abuse or neglect. How do we weigh the objective benefits/losses in terms of bodily harm when it comes to the use or elimination of these cameras?
Everything should be questioned, especially when reports are sensationalized amidst a population largely bereft of critical thinking.
I see dead people.
I had the same thing happen. Somebody with a vehicle of the same description apparently robbed or shoplifted from a Dollar General. Really from a Dollar General?
It was enough to get multiple units and LEO with their hands ready to pull a weapon.
After it was over I wondered how they would have taken “these are not the droids that you’re looking for.”
It is routine, business as usual, for the police to pick up the wrong person as a suspect. The duration of time before the police admit their mistake varies from instantly to never.
This is true with and without Flock, with and without other modern technology.
The risk is that the police/the government will mis-use this reality in a biased way to serve their agenda.
When I was in IL I was stopped by the police many times as a “suspect”. In most cases I was only inconvenienced for 10 or 20 minutes. In a few cases, or hours.
The most extreme case was intentional abuse by the Gang Crimes Unit which put me in Cook County Jail for 5 days. I was lucky. Both R and D County Prosecutors and political judges put innocent guys on death row for years for murders of which they had absolutely no connection and the prosecutors knew it. Both the R and D prosecutors did it as part of their ambition for higher office... Richie Daley for Chicago mayor, Jim Ryan for governor.
The system will make mistakes, and the authorities will slavishly follow what the system says, and someone will be falsely stopped and innocently reach for something in the car and be shot. It’s only a matter of time since the users will bow down in slavish obedience before the new system which is on the computer so it can’t be wrong!
Here are my thoughts on this as given through a brief essay.
Before applying them, it is worth asking what kind of safety he actually meant. The concept remains far-reaching. Domestic Tranquility is one of the most fundamental goals “We the People” seek to fulfill as a people, and safety plays into that goal in a substantial way. Yet the original context matters.
In 1755, Franklin wrote on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly during the French and Indian War. The “essential Liberty” at stake was the legislature’s right of self-governance—specifically its authority to tax proprietary lands to fund frontier defense.
The “little temporary Safety” was not a metaphor for surrendering individual rights to a distant government Leviathan; it was a concrete political bargain the Assembly refused to accept.
Franklin later reused the phrasing in 1775 in the revolutionary setting, still focused primarily on collective political liberty rather than the individual privacy concerns that dominate today’s discussions.
That history does not render the quotation irrelevant. It does counsel care. Bad actors will exploit any available means to do harm.
At the same time, draconian public-policy decisions can inflict damage of their own. Liberty necessarily involves risk, but those risks are rarely accepted with total disregard for safety.
The prudent path is neither reflexive expansion of Franklin’s meaning into a blanket condemnation of all surveillance nor uncritical acceptance of every security technology.
FLOCK cameras illustrate the tension. They do not themselves search or seize. When individuals or agencies use data obtained from them without proper authority or warrant, those persons should be prosecuted.
Cases of abuse or neglect will occur, and some people will be harmed. The practical question becomes how to weigh the measurable benefits—deterrence, recovery of stolen vehicles, identification of suspects in violent crimes—against the tangible losses, including risks to bodily safety that may arise from misuse or from the absence of the technology altogether.
Everything in this domain deserves scrutiny, especially when reports are sensationalized for a public that often lacks habits of critical thinking.
The FLOCK camera controversy is best treated as a robust opportunity to debate the proper relationship between individual liberty and the corporate or collective mechanisms that underwrite public safety.
The two need not operate as exclusive opposites. They can, and should, be made to work in tandem—provided the terms of that partnership are continually examined rather than assumed.
[Full disclosure: I made use of AI-GROK to assist with flow of thought.]
I think it won’t be long before someone gets killed in one of these misdesignations. All it has to be is a driver reaching for is insurance card when the cop walks up. The officer will be “justified” and the family may receive compensation after a lawsuit.
That quote needs to be repeatedly pasted up on the supports of these cameras in print big enough to be read by passing drivers.
Why didn't they arrest the car?
Having the city pay out extra-beaucoup bucks for every extended or repeated arrest of innocent people and violating thir rights (along with appropriate discipline measures to police, police chiefs, and DAs) should significantly reduce such incidences as well as the duration of such incidences when they do occur.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.