BRENTWOOD, MISSOURI—

August 2026

A Brentwood, Missouri police officer was accused of using the department’s Flock automated license-plate reader system to track the whereabouts of his ex-wife during a contentious divorce.

The allegations came to light after the woman said her former husband admitted that he had used the Flock camera system to determine where she was.

According to reporting, the woman said the officer told her that he had run her license plate through the system after she returned home.

She described the alleged conduct as part of what she viewed as an ongoing effort to monitor her movements and determine where she was and who she was with during the divorce.

The case is significant because the technology involved was not a private tracking device.

Flock automated license-plate readers are law-enforcement tools designed to capture license plates and vehicle information and allow authorized users to search that information for investigative purposes.

In this case, however, an investigation determined that the officer’s use of the system violated department policy.

The woman’s allegation prompted a third-party complaint filed by her boyfriend. The complaint ultimately led to an investigation involving outside law-enforcement agencies.

The circumstances occurred during the couple’s divorce proceedings, making the alleged use of the law-enforcement technology particularly concerning to the woman.

Rather than simply observing a vehicle in public, the Flock system gave an authorized law-enforcement user the ability to search information collected by a network of automated license-plate cameras.

The Brentwood Police Department did not handle the investigation entirely on its own.

St. Louis County Police Department investigated the allegations, with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office also involved in the investigative process.

The matter was ultimately reviewed in connection with the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

Brentwood Police Chief Joseph Speiss stated in a letter that the department’s own internal investigation found “sustained policy violations.”

That distinction is important.

An employee can violate an agency’s rules or professional standards without prosecutors having sufficient legal grounds to file criminal charges.

In the Brentwood case, investigators determined that the conduct did not meet the threshold for a criminal offense under Missouri law, while the department’s internal investigation nevertheless sustained policy violations related to the officer’s use of the Flock system.

The City of Brentwood subsequently stated that the investigation had been closed following the Brentwood Police Department’s cooperation with St. Louis County and the prosecuting attorney’s office.

Because the matter was treated as a personnel issue, Brentwood officials said they could not provide additional details about the officer’s employment or any disciplinary action taken against him.

That means the publicly reported record does not establish a criminal conviction or criminal charge against the officer in connection with the Flock allegations.

The allegation remains an internal personnel and policy matter.

Technology has become widely deployed throughout the St. Louis region.

Hundreds of automated license-plate reader cameras operate throughout the area, with Flock being the most widely used brand in the region.

Law enforcement agencies use these systems for legitimate investigative purposes, including identifying vehicles associated with criminal investigations.

But the Brentwood case demonstrates the importance of distinguishing authorized law-enforcement use from personal use.

When a person with law-enforcement credentials accesses a surveillance system to obtain information about someone involved in a personal dispute, the question becomes whether that access was consistent with department policy and the purpose for which the technology was provided.

The Brentwood case also raises questions about how much information automated license-plate reader systems can provide about a person’s movements.

A license plate is visible to the public when a vehicle is traveling on a public roadway.

But an automated database can make it possible for an authorized user to search previously collected plate information rather than simply observing a vehicle at one particular moment.

That difference has become part of a broader debate over automated surveillance technology.

Saint Louis University School of Law professor Anders Walker stated that “courts have generally found that individuals do not have a privacy right in their license plates because plates are visible in public.”

At the same time, he acknowledged that the technology can be abused and said officers who use plate readers to harass people should face consequences.

Did the conduct violate Brentwood Police Department policy?

The department’s internal investigation found sustained policy violations.

Another important aspect of the case is the absence of a specific Missouri law addressing this particular type of Flock misuse.

Missouri and Illinois do not have laws specifically making it illegal to use Flock cameras to stalk someone.

Instead, individual police departments establish their own policies governing the use of automated license-plate reader technology and determine what disciplinary consequences apply when those policies are violated.

That leaves departments with an important responsibility:

establishing clear rules about who may access the technology, what constitutes a legitimate search, how searches are documented and how inappropriate access is detected.

The Brentwood case is ultimately about more than one officer and one divorce.

It raises a basic question about access to government surveillance technology:

Who is monitoring the people who have access to the system?

Law-enforcement officers are given access to information that ordinary members of the public cannot obtain.

That access exists because officers are expected to use government resources for legitimate public-safety purposes.

When that technology is allegedly used during a personal dispute, the public has a legitimate interest in knowing whether safeguards are working.

The case therefore illustrates an important distinction between criminal accountability and administrative accountability.

One concerns whether a person’s conduct violated criminal law.

The other concerns whether an employee violated the rules, policies or standards of the organization for which they work.

The Brentwood case highlights why policies surrounding surveillance technology matter.

Technology can be an important tool for public safety.

But the more information a system makes available, the more important it becomes to establish boundaries around who can access that information and why.

It also raises questions about whether Missouri’s current laws and local departmental policies adequately address the personal use of automated surveillance systems.

For the woman at the center of the complaint, the issue was personal:

‘She said she believed her former husband was using his access to a law-enforcement surveillance system to find out where she was.’

When technology designed for public safety can reveal information about people’s movements, access, oversight and accountability matter.

Public-safety tools should remain focused on public safety.

And when questions arise about how those tools are used, communities deserve clear policies, meaningful oversight and accountability.