Wisconsin cops used Flock over 100 times to track a veteran who filmed a traffic stop

A federal lawsuit in Wisconsin claims that sheriff's deputies used Flock Safety licence-plate cameras to run more than 100 searches for a Navy veteran's vehicle in the weeks after he lawfully recorded a traffic stop — and after he filed a complaint against the deputy who arrested him.

The stop and the arrest

On May 4, 2025, Napoleon Jones was standing in a private parking lot in Sussex, Wisconsin, when he saw a traffic stop made by an out-of-county police officer. "It just didn't sit right with me," Jones told the local NBC affiliate TMJ4 News. "So I did what I legally could do, and I walked over and recorded it."

After Waukesha County Sheriff's deputy Brandon Shayhorn finished the stop, Jones returned to his car. Before he could leave the lot, Shayhorn turned on his lights and stopped him again, saying the temporary plate displayed in the rear window was unreadable. Jones refused to produce his licence, arguing the stop on private property was unlawful; video of the encounter shows the deputy opening his door and pulling him from the vehicle. He was arrested for resisting and obstructing, held for five hours, and released without any citation or criminal charge. An internal post-arrest memorandum reviewed by Reason shows Shayhorn's supervisor told him shortly after the arrest that the stop had in fact been illegal and that he could not compel Jones to produce identification.

Over 100 searches for a white BMW

The next day Jones filed a citizen's complaint and sought legal counsel. While preparing the case, his attorney Nate Cade found a single Flock Safety photograph of his client's white BMW dated May 30, 2025 — 25 days after the incident. Further investigation revealed more than 100 Flock searches for a white BMW in the weeks after the arrest, some made by Shayhorn himself. In depositions, Shayhorn and other officers said a lieutenant had ordered the searches in connection with Jones' citizen complaint. There was no Flock camera in the parking lot where the arrest took place, and Jones was not suspected of any wrongdoing.

What the lawsuit alleges

In July 2026 Jones amended his complaint to add the officers who searched for his vehicle without "a legitimate law enforcement purpose", as required by the county's user agreement. He alleges the searches were retaliation for exercising his First Amendment right to record a traffic stop. The case lands amid fierce public backlash against police use of automated licence-plate readers; the officers are not accused of the more lurid abuses reported elsewhere, but the complaint argues that if lawfully filming an officer can trigger weeks of surveillance, other protected activity may be met the same way.