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Bad Flock Info Leads Police To Tow Wrong Car, Then Towing Company Totals It (jalopnik.com) 133

Posted by EditorDavid from the what-the-Flock dept.
"Police continue to blindly trust Flock cameras above and beyond the evidence in front of their own eyes," reports Jalopnik.com.

"After incorrectly connecting Rosalyn Crump's car to a shooting that had occurred the previous day, police had her car towed and impounded as evidence, reports Moneywise..." According to WWBT 12 On Your Side, Richmond, Virginia, police didn't have a license plate number for the suspect's car, making it impossible to search Flock's records for that plate. Flock cameras collect more than just license plate information, so police searched for a make, model, color, and approximate model year. Based on this extremely vague description, police zeroed in on Crump's 2012 Hyundai Elantra. Around 2 a.m. they started looking through the windows with flashlights to see what was in plain sight, which isn't technically a "search" — at least, not one that would require a warrant... [Crump was asleep, but left her home to speak to the police officers to tell them they had the wrong car. But they didn't believe her.]

Other body cam footage shows an officer expressing doubt that Crump's car is the right one, since child seats and other items inside seem inconsistent with a shooting. Another officer replies, "Don't be surprised if they would have set that up like that." Instead of believing the evidence, or Crump, or interviewing witnesses who could have corroborated her story, police called Seibert's Towing to impound the car...

[Later] Police identified a similar-looking car that seemed to be actually connected to the shooting, and released Crump's Elantra. Nobody actually told Crump this until four days later. Seibert's told Moneywise that police didn't actually release the car until then. Either way, they didn't tell her that Seibert's had ripped the front bumper off during the towing process — leaving the car undrivable — until she arrived to pick it up. Seibert's took responsibility for causing the cosmetic damage, and was willing to cover the $2,212.30 bill to paint and replace the bumper cover, fog lights, and wheel liners. Then Crump asked for a full mechanical inspection, which revealed damaged tie rods and ball joints, jacking the bill beyond $6,000. Seibert's says it didn't cause this damage. Regardless of how it occurred, Seibert's insurer and Crump agree that her Hyundai is now a total loss due to the cost of the repairs it needs. It had been drivable, if mechanically worn, before police ordered it towed, damaging it for nothing more than a case of mistaken identity.
The president of Seibert's towing told Moneywise that while they'd originally offered $2,200 to repair the bumper damage, Crump must now negotiate with their insurance company. Crump has now resorted to a GoFundMe campaign to attempt to raise $17,100 for rental car expenses, a new car, and the expenses of moving to a different neighborhood. 130 donors have already contributed $7,431.

Reached for comment, the Richmond Police Department told local newscasters they "understand that Ms. Crump did not ask to become part of this investigation," and that they recognize the "frustration of having a vehicle towed and subsequently damaged." But they also said they were following a "credible" lead, which is their responsibility. The department "appreciates Ms. Crump's cooperation" (and "sincerely hopes the remaining concerns about her vehicle can be resolved.")

The city of Richmond has "already started backing away from Flock before Crump's story aired," reports Moneywise. "Mayor Danny Avula has decided not to renew Richmond's license plate reader deal with Flock, which ends June 30, 2027. As of September, the city had 99 Flock readers on its streets."

They note that the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm in Arlington, Virginia, "has tallied at least 27 cases since 2018" of similar police errors. "In each case, a license plate reader mistake led police to stop, jail or point guns at drivers who'd done nothing wrong. More than half came in 2023 or later."

Bad Flock Info Leads Police To Tow Wrong Car, Then Towing Company Totals It More | Reply

Bad Flock Info Leads Police To Tow Wrong Car, Then Towing Company Totals It

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  • Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by john83 ( 923470 ) on Monday November 02, 2026 @03:50AM (#66405565)
    Why is the panopticon so stupid?

    • Because cops don't read Slashdot, apparently.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        The fun thing in this story was right at the end. They're going to allow the Flock license to expire, but unless they pay extra to remove them the cameras still stay and they're still collecting data 24x7.

        • Realistically, how much would hiring a contractor to spray the solar panels powering the things with black oven paint cost? Some people would even happily do it for free.

      • Because we donâ(TM)t have enough good flock cameras. Everyone knows that the solution to something bad is more of the same thing but good. We clearly just need more good flock data and thatâ(TM)ll shoot the bad flock data.

  • Well... there's a lot wrong here (Score:5, Informative)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday November 02, 2026 @04:06AM (#66405571)

    Beyond the Flock headline, and the police not thinking properly, the biggest problem seems to be the towing company. Police at least have human judgement to fault, but the towing company... that's your job. How do you not know how to tow a car without totalling it? No judgement, no thought, no database error, just sheer and utter incompetence doing the one thing you are supposed to be good at doing.

    • Police at least have human judgement to fault

      Do they? There's a lot of these recently suggesting they've turned off thinking and are just doing what the chatbot says.

    • Re:Well... there's a lot wrong here (Score:4, Insightful)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Monday November 02, 2026 @04:59AM (#66405629)

      Beyond the Flock headline, and the police not thinking properly, the biggest problem seems to be the towing company. Police at least have human judgement to fault..

      Really? Like they say with fights..who started it?

      Richmond Police Department told local newscasters they "understand that Ms. Crump did not ask to become part of this investigation,"..But they also said they were following a "credible" lead..

      Root cause. And I’ll stick with my original analysis on this. A Moron, thought that was “credible”. A Moron that should be evaluated before policing our society again. Along with the Moron that trained them.

      • Really? Like they say with fights..who started it?

        Who started what? Damaging the car? The towing company. I don't understand why you are analysing this entire situation to an inconsistent root. There should be a minimum expectation that even if the police were correct in impounding the car that you get your car back in one piece at the end.

        The police aren't the root cause of this problem, as with normal competent towing company the car would have been returned in one piece 4 days later regardless of what the police did. Please don't use words you don't und

    • Re:Well... there's a lot wrong here (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dragonslicer ( 991472 ) on Monday November 02, 2026 @06:20AM (#66405675)

      ...but the towing company... that's your job. How do you not know how to tow a car without totalling it? No judgement, no thought, no database error, just sheer and utter incompetence doing the one thing you are supposed to be good at doing.

      You left out one key detail:

      ...police had her car towed and impounded as evidence...

      If the police ask you to tow a car because it's evidence in a crime, how do you not know how to tow a car without destroying evidence?

    • Flock is a pretty useless tool, not in the least because of the error rate. An error rate that Flock papers over when talking to police.

      This lack of understanding for how fallible the technology is leads police to treat it like it's always right. To be blatantly honest: Most cops are dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to technology. I watched a Civil Rights Lawyer video where an "AI" (it's not f**king AI) system in a casino incorrectly marked a person as someone else entirely. The guy had documentation

      • Flock is potentially an enormously useful tool, but most cops aren't smart enough to use it correctly. That does make it a poorly designed tool, since they are apparently the primary target market. It's also too easily abused to be allowed to exist.

    • Let's be fair here: The car was already a piece of shit. Towing it was extremely hazardous to the health of the car.

      Let's also be fair here again: That poor woman needs to be provided a new car by the police themselves. The tow company is essentially also a victim in all of this.

      • Re: Well... there's a lot wrong here (Score:5, Insightful)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday November 02, 2026 @10:58AM (#66406033) Homepage Journal

        No they absolutely are not. First, they chose to take the contract with the police. Second, they chose to employ an incompetent. The driver should have determined it unsafe to tow with his equipment.

        • No they absolutely are not.

          \

          Are too! (lol)

          Second, they chose to employ an incompetent.

          Hey bro, this is the Real World (TM). Nothing has ever gone suddenly "tits up" for you despite your best efforts? Were you incompetent or was it just an unfortunate series of circumstances? If you are going to try to enforce perfection here, I am going to have to ask YOU to prove that.

          Yeah, the tow driver could very well have been incompetent, but it sounds like the vehicle was already falling apart due to lack of maintenance. That you choose to crucify the tow truck driver says a lot about

          • What evidence has been provided that the vehicle was already falling apart? I've seen only speculation.

            • Oh look, no evidence at all and strikethree was just living up to his name... In defense of fascism. What a cuck.

              • Or he just couldn't tolerate the poo smell anymore and left. I wouldn't be surprised if you've posted replies to mine that I never even saw because I simply lost interest and didn't care enough to follow up. Besides, I've watched you defend fascist behavior multiple times, shit I've even watched you encourage it and even beg for it, so you don't exactly have any kind of a moral high ground here.

    • Re:Well... there's a lot wrong here (Score:5, Informative)

      by CubicleZombie ( 2590497 ) on Monday November 02, 2026 @10:29AM (#66406001)

      How do you not know how to tow a car without totalling it?

      They were most likely using a sling wrecker. That's the type with a tow bar and those wide strips that hang down from the boom - kind of what you think of when you imagine a tow truck. Those are relics from the 70's when cars had huge chrome bumpers and solid frames.

      Today they (should) use a wheel lift. That's the type with the bar that goes under the car and lifts from the tires.

      I worked at a towing shop in Richmond in the 90's when I was in college there (not Seiberts, but I remember them). It was the sketchiest shop in the city, we only had sling wreckers, and our quality of drivers reflected that we were the only shop in town that didn't drug test. Half of my job was fixing the damage that the drivers did when towing illegally parked cars. They'd hook the steering tie rods, bending them, and then winch it up with the sling and rip the bumper cover off.

      Nothing here is newsworthy except that it started from a Flock camera.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by G00F ( 241765 )

        still news worthy, even without flock, police basically store a car, wrecked it, all under the guise that its part of a crime when not and are not rectifying it.

        They should be held 110% liable for the car and forcing the person to forgo and go through all the painful hoops to get it back to the point where the price of a new car seams cheap.

        Impounding should not happen with such a low amount of evidence, and IMO should come after some kind of court thing that prevents mistakes and they should assume all lia

    • The car would not have been towed if the police did not request it. One of the issues I can see is police treat a Flock as infallible perfect identification when, at best, it generates possible suspects in this case. The police in this case did not use their best judgement ignoring their doubts and towed the car anyways.
  • Love the way pigs can fuck around and do what they want then be like meh, shit one, when it turns out they fucked up.
  • I'm getting tired of these articles: if we don't want this kind of shit to happen, we'd insist on not testing and selecting cops based on their [below average stupidity] but rather their intelligence.
  • The police noted that they were following a "credible lead".

    So I would suggest that everyone who has a 2012 Hyundai Elantra, either hide it or get rid of it. Because the towing and impound are completely justified in FlockWorld.

  • They did not do thier job (Score:3)

    by DewDude ( 537374 ) on Monday November 02, 2026 @09:33AM (#66405899) Homepage

    They had doubt. They're supposed to investigate.

    They did not. They made an assumption. They're not law enforcement. They're a joke.

  • There are no consequences whatsoever for these cops that caused all of this unnecessary collateral damage. They get Qualified Immunity and shrug "we followed a credible lead", while the public suffers. Cops wonder why people hate them.

  • Reached for comment, the Richmond Police Department told local newscasters they "understand that Ms. Crump did not ask to become part of this investigation," and that they recognize the "frustration of having a vehicle towed and subsequently damaged." But they also said they were following a "credible" lead, which is their responsibility.

    This "credible lead" (i.e. "we decided that, our of all the cars that kinda look like the one we were looking for, yours with the child seats was the one used in the drive-by") sounds a lot like that line from the Usual Suspects:

    Cop: "I can put you in Queens on the night of the hijacking."

    Hockney: "Really? I live in Queens. Did you put that together yourself, Einstein? What, do you got a team of monkeys working around the clock on this?"

  • ... but this is a situation where I'd sue the living shit out of everyone involved. Sadly, it's about the only way to have an impact on the policies.

  • If the lead was credible, the evidence would have been credible. The fact they got the wrong car proves the lead was nonsense. The fact they used Flock to run a nondescript search, and didn't get a warrant, proves they knew it was the wrong car, found through a bad service. The officers involved should be fired, blacklisted, and have to compensate her for all the damage. Another Flock search, another bad search, thank god for Flock; otherwise officers might have to do their job.

  • IMO, this whole incident is just an all around mess. I mean, obviously it illustrates another big failure by police departments using Flock and not enough common sense or restraint. But it's also about a towing company unable to do its job correctly. And lastly, it sounds suspiciously like the victim is trying to milk the situation for as much as she can get.

    By that, I mean, the towing company DID agree to make things right with the bumper they partially tore off. But coming back after that to demand a me

  • It's not that the flock data is bad, it's that the cops aren't doing any double check / verification because they are too lazy.

    As a matter of fact, cops doing actual investigative work is a major issue with policing in America. (Or the complete lack of doing any investigative work).

    Youtube is full of 10's of thousands of videos of very confidently wrong cops who failed to do any sort of investigation prior to rendering a verdict.

    • Youtube is full of 10's of thousands of videos of very confidently wrong cops

      Some of which are marked as AI generated, and some which are not marked as such. I've seen some very plausible YouTube videos which then failed simple fact checking.
      In this case though, a policeman simply decided that Ms. Crump's car was "the one" and ignored evidence to the contrary, maybe demoting him would be sufficient punishment. I do agree with King_TJ in the comment above though, there's a good chance that the vehicle owne

  • Time to retain Dewy, Cheetam and Howe to sue, sue sue both the police department and the towing company.

    "Come on, big bucks, big bucks, no Wammies!" "STOP!"
  • This is not Flock's fault. It's the fault of the police. Flock provided correct information about the suspect car. The police towed the car on the basis of non-unique properties like the model and color, and they ignored the testimony of the owner's neighbors. The police followed a lead and acted as if they had a solid identification when they didn't, something that seems to happen all too often.

    • Flock gave them a partial identification. If you give them enough rope, they'll hang a stranger with it.

      The reason why mass surveillance is a bad idea is that it gives police an excess amount of "leads", which aren't actually leads. It makes innocent people look like criminals purely by coincidence and association. Because there's so much of this false information floating around (because everyone is a target) it creates more abuse.

  • fuck them (Score:2)

    by Tom ( 822 )

    they "understand that Ms. Crump did not ask to become part of this investigation," and that they recognize the "frustration of having a vehicle towed and subsequently damaged."

    So many words for "lol, yeah that's a them problem, we don't give a shit".

    That this is even a matter for insurance is pathetic. The police caused this to happen, it needs to pay the bill, in full, including any costs the innocent person had for the time they kept the vehicle illegally.

    Once cases like this drain the police budgets, they'll have an incentive to actually do a good job instead of fucking around and offloading the cost of their stupidity on ordinary people.

  • "they were following a "credible" lead, which is their responsibility"

    The police think it's better to blame an innocent person than nobody at all

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