Lindsey Isaacs was asleep inside her Palm Coast apartment when two Florida Highway Patrol troopers pounded on her door before dawn on Oct. 5, 2025.

Hours earlier, a multi-vehicle crash on Interstate 4 between Orlando and Daytona Beach had left three people dead. Investigators were looking for a Dodge Durango that fled the scene.

Isaacs owned a black Dodge Durango. And Flock Safety cameras had captured her SUV moving through the area that night, including one camera about three miles from the crash.

Troopers seized her vehicle that morning. Months later, on April 17, 2026, Isaacs was arrested on six felony charges — three counts of vehicular homicide and three counts of leaving the scene of a deadly crash.

She was denied bond and spent 13 days in jail.

But a reinvestigation found no crash damage to Isaacs’ SUV.

Investigators eventually identified a maroon Dodge Durango with evidence of a high-speed crash. Its plate also matched a partial plate reported in an original 911 call.

Prosecutors dropped all charges against Isaacs on May 22. Hours later, authorities arrested the driver of the maroon Durango.

But Flock disputes the suggestion that its technology caused Isaacs’ arrest.

Flock says its cameras provide investigative leads. What police do with those leads is up to them.

Still, Isaacs’ story shows the reach of Flock’s technology.

Your Rundown for Wednesday, September 23, 2026...

750 Contracts, 47 States

Flock Safety says its network now includes about 120,000 cameras across 49 states.

An independent public-records project called Who Approved This? has documented 750 government Flock contracts in 47 states. Only 309 contain publicly documented dollar amounts.

Those contracts alone total $149.7 million in public spending.

But that figure is just the floor.

The $149.7 million excludes 441 contracts with no publicly available contract amount, as well as cameras purchased privately by businesses or homeowners associations.

Some multiyear agreements run into the millions.

DeKalb County, Georgia, approved an $18 million deal over 10 years. Commerce City, Colorado, approved a $4.56 million contract over five years. Oakland, California, approved $2.25 million for two years.

But the size of these contracts tells only part of the story.

No Budget? No Problem

In July, Flock published a guide for police departments titled “All the Ways to Fund [License Plate Reader] Technology Without a Grant.”

Among the options: pandemic-relief money, asset forfeiture, jail commissary revenue, prosecutor partnerships and contributions from local businesses.

Asset forfeiture is particularly interesting. Flock suggests departments can use money seized in connection with crimes to launch a license plate reader program, then move the recurring subscription cost into the general budget.

Flock notes that better vehicle intelligence can also lead to successful investigations and more seized assets, replenishing the same forfeiture fund.

Then there’s jail commissary revenue — money generated when inmates buy snacks, hygiene products, phone time and other items. Flock says agencies in Indiana, Missouri, South Dakota and Kansas have used commissary money for initial Flock deployments.

So the money that gets the cameras onto the street doesn’t necessarily come from annual police budgets.

East Moline, Illinois, offers a clear example.

In 2022, the city approved 10 Flock cameras plus an advanced search package. The first year cost $32,600, paid with federal pandemic-relief money from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

For year two, the city planned to put the $27,500 cost into its own budget.

East Moline paid Flock $2,500 per camera per year, plus another $2,500 annually for the search package.

Federal money covered the first year. After that, the recurring subscription shifted to the city budget, meaning local taxpayers inherited the bill.

Flock’s Origin Story

Flock got an early boost from Y Combinator, the influential Silicon Valley startup accelerator behind companies including Airbnb, DoorDash and Coinbase.

Flock joined Y Combinator’s Summer 2017 class, which helped prepare the young company to pitch investors and raise money.

Plenty of both followed.

In March 2025, Andreessen Horowitz led a $275 million investment round that valued Flock at $7.5 billion. Other investors included Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins and Tiger Global.

By the first half of this year, Flock says annual recurring revenue had crossed $500 million.

The private company’s latest valuation: $8.3 billion.

And Flock is no longer just a license plate reader company. It has expanded into gunshot detection, drones and AI-powered search software.

The company, in fact, says more than half of its new revenue now comes from products other than license plate readers.

That means the camera beside the highway can be the first piece of a much larger Flock system that customers — especially government agencies — add over time.

The Other Flock Network

OpenSecrets found that Flock has spent more than $2 million lobbying federal and state governments since 2025, with active lobbyists in 34 states.

Federal filings don’t establish that Flock was lobbying for any particular funding program.

Still, the government sits on both sides of Flock’s business model. Legislators regulate the technology, while police departments and municipalities buy it — sometimes with help from federal money.

Florida, for one, is now pulling in the other direction.

Earlier this month, the state stopped local police from placing license plate readers on state highway rights-of-way and moved to revoke existing permits. The Florida Department of Transportation cited reports of misuse, data-privacy concerns and “surveillance schemes.”

That brings us back to Lindsey Isaacs. She’s not suing Flock and told InvestigateTV that she blames the police officers more than the cameras.

But she also said she would rather the Flock cameras weren’t there.

America didn’t build this network through one massive federal surveillance program. It grew camera by camera and contract by contract, paid for through federal grants, taxpayer-funded local budgets, seized assets and even jail commissary money.

Along the way, Flock became an $8.3 billion company.

So the next time you notice those solar-powered cameras beside the road, you might wonder who’s watching.

But there’s another question worth asking: Who paid to put them there?

[It’s your turn, reader: Who should decide whether Flock cameras belong in your community: police, elected officials or the public?

What safeguards would you require before allowing a system like Flock in your community? Send your opinions to feedback@newsyoucancounton.com]

Market Rundown for Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026

S&P 500 futures are down 0.10% to 7,823.

Oil is up 0.15% to $90.65 for a barrel of WTI.

Gold’s down 0.70% to $4,345.80 per ounce.

And Bitcoin is down 1% to $85,465.