The controversial Flock Safety cameras throughout El Paso will be removed – or at least covered up – in the coming months after a unanimous City Council vote Tuesday.
The council voted to ask Flock Safety to remove the camera equipment within 60 days, otherwise the city will cover them up with “fully opaque bags” or covers that fully restrict their use following months of public scrutiny over privacy, surveillance and how the collected data could be used.
The vote followed a nearly two-hour discussion about how to address the 150 automated license plate readers installed by Georgia-based Flock Group Inc., operating as Flock Safety, now that grant funding used to operate them has been blocked by Gov. Greg Abbott.
The City Council, Police Department staff and the city’s legal department went back and forth on whether the city could remove the cameras under the contract the Police Department entered with the company in May 2025.
City Attorney Karla Nieman said Flock Safety could file a claim against the city since the contract stipulates that it is solely responsible for the removal of the equipment.
Flock Safety did not respond to a request for comment.
“We already sent a letter to Flock that we’re no longer going to renew the contract, and what we’re going to be doing there is let them know that they need to come pick up their equipment,” El Paso Police Chief Peter Pacillas said after the City Council vote.
Pacillas said the department stopped using the cameras Sept. 3, but still has access to the data that was collected for the last 30 days it was operational. He said he did not know whether Flock has been using the El Paso cameras since the state funding was cut.
City Reps. Chris Canales, Josh Acevedo and Lily Limón co-sponsored the agenda items that aimed to remove the existing cameras and prevent the city from entering into future agreements with Flock or other vendors.
The City Council directed the city attorney to draft a resolution preventing future use of the technology unless council members, city manager or Police Department bring a recommendation to the council for a vote. The draft resolution will return to the City Council in 30 days.
EPPD entered the agreement with Flock after the council approved the use of a grant from the state’s Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority for the police auto theft task force. However, the City Council did not directly vote to approve using the grant funding for Flock cameras.
City Manager Dionne Mack said Tuesday that the Police Department followed protocols when contracting with Flock using the grant funding.
El Paso police officials on Sept. 3 said that they would stop using the cameras but would not remove them and at the time considered seeking other funding sources to resume using the technology.
Abbott pulled state funding for the cameras ahead of the publication of a Texas Tribune investigation that detailed how the crime prevention authority enabled state and local law enforcement agencies to install thousands of cameras since 2023. The grant funding came from a 2023 law that added a $1 fee to Texas auto-insurance policies to combat catalytic converter thefts, according to the Texas Tribune.
The authority entered a $15.9 million contract with the Department of Public Safety, which has installed about 1,200 of the cameras, according to the Texas Tribune. The authority’s board was appointed by Abbott, who is seeking reelection in November.
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