You might expect someone taking down surveillance cameras to avoid being filmed. Jevon Martinez did the opposite.
The 44-year-old Rio Rancho, New Mexico, man recorded himself removing Flock Safety camera equipment around Bernalillo County on Sept. 2. He loaded the equipment into his pickup truck while explaining his reasoning to people watching online. The timing gave Martinez his opening.
Days earlier, Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen had moved to end the department’s three contracts with Flock Safety. Allen cited concerns about privacy, data sharing and his confidence in the company. However, he still supports automated license plate reader technology and plans to look at other vendors.
Martinez apparently saw the remaining cameras as unfinished business. What happened next shows how quickly a fight over surveillance can turn into a criminal case once someone starts removing hardware they do not own.
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Martinez made his position unusually easy to understand because he documented it himself. In a Sept. 2 social media post, Martinez said BCSO no longer subscribed to Flock. He wrote that he was taking down the equipment so he could return it.
He also insisted that he was neither destroying nor stealing the equipment. Martinez described it as property that had been left unattended.
His videos carried the same message. “Since BCSO is busy, I know BCSO is busy, everyone who works for BCSO, I know you guys are busy, so I went ahead and helped you out,” Martinez says while driving his pickup.
The camera then shows what he means by “helped.” His truck bed is filling up with Flock equipment.
This also was not Martinez’s first encounter with law enforcement over license plate readers. Rio Rancho police had arrested him months earlier in a separate Sandoval County case involving the alleged removal and damage of three license plate reader systems. He faced nine felony charges in that case.
Martinez does not come across in the videos as someone trying to keep a low profile. Quite the opposite. “We got a bunch of these bad boys,” he says while showing off the equipment in the back of the truck.
Then comes the line that gives the videos an almost game-like quality. “Let’s see how much I can get in one day. That’s gonna be the challenge for everyone out there.”
At another point, Martinez tells viewers, “Not in my city, not in my state.” He also repeatedly calls the Flock cameras “tyranny trees,” a nickname that says plenty about how he views automated vehicle surveillance. Reports of his livestream show him dismantling one of the systems while continuing to explain his position. Martinez creates his own record as he goes, with his face, voice and actions captured on camera.
This is where Martinez’s social media explanation runs into an important problem. Bernalillo County authorities say he removed 10 Flock camera systems with an estimated combined value of $16,500.
However, only two were associated with BCSO. Authorities say the other eight were managed by neighborhood associations. That changes the picture considerably.
Martinez repeatedly described what he was doing as returning equipment to the sheriff after BCSO ended its relationship with Flock. Yet most of the systems authorities recovered were connected to other organizations.
BCSO also says the equipment remained property that members of the public had no authorization to remove. So while Martinez’s videos clearly explain what he believed he was doing, they do not settle the ownership question.
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Martinez said throughout his videos that he planned to return the equipment to BCSO. However, investigators give a somewhat different account of how that ended.
According to the criminal complaint, Martinez drove past BCSO headquarters three times while the equipment remained in his truck. Deputies eventually stopped him outside the sheriff’s office.
Video of the arrest shows deputies surrounding his pickup with guns drawn before placing him in handcuffs. Martinez was unarmed, and the charges against him stem from the alleged removal of the equipment rather than a violent offense.
Court reporting differs slightly on the precise larceny charge. One account of the criminal complaint describes attempted larceny over $2,500, while BCSO reporting lists larceny over $2,500. He also faces an interference with communications charge.
Martinez appeared virtually in Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court on Sept. 4. Prosecutors did not file a pretrial detention motion, and Judge Claire McDaniel did not order him held in the Bernalillo County case.
That did not mean Martinez walked free. He remained in custody because of the separate Sandoval County case tied to the earlier alleged license plate reader removals. Reports say that Sandoval County held him over a violation of his release conditions and that a grand jury has since indicted him in that case. The cases remain unresolved, and the charges are allegations unless and until proven in court.
There is another wrinkle here that makes this story more interesting. Sheriff Allen had already reached his own breaking point with Flock Safety.
BCSO had three contracts connected to the company. One covered five automatic license plate reader cameras. Another involved 16 speed cameras connected to the Flock network. A third covered gunshot detection technology.
Allen said he had lost confidence in Flock over privacy safeguards and data sharing. He also raised concerns about other law enforcement agencies gaining access to New Mexico plate data.
Still, Allen has defended the underlying technology as a useful law enforcement tool. His disagreement centers on the vendor and the safeguards surrounding the data. That puts BCSO and Martinez in an unusual position. Both expressed serious concerns about Flock. Their ideas about what should happen next could hardly be further apart.
Automatic license plate readers can create a detailed record of where vehicles appear. Flock’s LPR systems collect license plate text along with the date, time and camera location. They can also record basic vehicle characteristics such as make, model and color. Flock says the system does not collect the driver’s identity through the LPR camera.
Police can use that information to generate leads in investigations. The concern comes from what happens when millions of those observations become searchable.
We saw the risks firsthand in Colorado, where a woman faced a porch theft accusation after Flock cameras linked her truck to the area. Other location data eventually helped her show where she actually was.
Flock cameras have also moved into places you may visit every week. CyberGuy found license plate readers operating at some Home Depot and Lowe’s parking lots in Connecticut. That means pulling into a store can create another record tied to your vehicle.
Then there are systems that can combine different types of signals. We recently looked at SignalTrace, technology that can correlate wireless device signals with license plate reader information and travel patterns.
All of this helps explain why a camera on a roadside can trigger such a strong reaction. It does not give someone permission to dismantle one.
You can question automatic license plate readers without ever touching a camera. Start by finding out which company operates the readers in your community and how long your local agency keeps the data.
Then ask who can search the system and how officials audit those searches. Private cameras deserve attention too. A homeowners association, shopping center or business may operate plate readers that connect with law enforcement.
Public records can help you understand how local agencies use the technology. Public meetings also give residents a way to challenge contracts before officials renew them.
If you want cameras removed, push the people who have the legal authority to make that decision. That keeps the debate focused on surveillance policy rather than turning it into a criminal case.
I understand why these cameras make people uncomfortable. A system that quietly logs where vehicles appear deserves close scrutiny, especially when information can move between agencies. Bernalillo County’s own sheriff had enough concerns about Flock to walk away from the company. Martinez clearly shares the privacy concern, but his videos show what can happen when someone decides to take the next step on his own.
The biggest factual problem with his argument is hard to overlook. Authorities say only two of the 10 systems he removed were associated with BCSO. The other eight were managed by neighborhood associations. Then there are the videos themselves. Martinez wanted people to see what he was doing. He explained his reasoning and showed the equipment piling up in his truck. Those posts may help him make a political argument online. They also give investigators a remarkably detailed record of what happened. For me, the useful questions are who gets to collect our movement data and what limits control access to it. Those are fights worth having in public.
If your local sheriff said it no longer trusted a surveillance company, would you want every camera removed immediately or would you accept a replacement system with stronger privacy safeguards? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.
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