Lawsuit is believed to be the first to allege that officers used Flock to retaliate against someone for suing them.
NEWNAN, GA — October 9, 2026 — Hall & Lampros, LLP has filed a class action lawsuit against Flock Group, Inc. (d/b/a Flock Safety), Coweta County, Georgia, the Coweta County Sheriff, and sheriff’s deputies alleging that law enforcement officers used Flock license plate reader cameras to illegally surveil and search the plaintiff in retaliation for a then-ongoing lawsuit against the county sheriff and sheriff’s deputies for violating his constitutional rights.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Newnan Division, is believed to be the first lawsuit alleging that officers used Flock to retaliate against someone for suing them. It alleges illegal searches over many months without probable cause and unrelated to any specific investigation. The lawsuit alleges that Flock also failed to put safeguards in place to prevent illegal surveillance by officers by accepting free-text-field entries instead of specific case numbers or investigations.
“We believe this case is the first to allege actual retaliatory animus intended to punish someone for advocating for his own constitutional rights by using Flock cameras to illegally surveil him, invade his privacy, and harass him in clear violation of the law,” said Attorney Christopher B. Hall, Co-Founder and Partner at Hall & Lampros, LLP, which specializes in class actions, civil rights, employment law, and catastrophic personal injury cases.
The plaintiff, Tyler Murkerson, had previously sued the sheriff and two deputies in Coweta County, alleging that they violated his constitutional rights by forcing him to the ground, using a Taser on him, and arresting him in a gas station parking lot over an alleged seatbelt violation, even though Georgia’s seatbelt statute does not apply on private property. The criminal charges against him were dismissed in June 2023, and his civil rights lawsuit was resolved in 2026.
Mr. Murkerson sued the sheriff and deputies for the excessive force he alleged was used against him. While that lawsuit was pending, Coweta County deputies used the Flock Safety automated license plate recognition (ALPR) network and associated state and federal law enforcement databases to surveil Murkerson, the lawsuit alleges. Audit records reflect a surveillance period for Murkerson’s vehicle spanning 197 days, and five searches were attributed to the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office spanning more than 6,000 agency camera networks nationwide, the lawsuit alleges, citing Flock audit records obtained through public records requests and published on HaveIBeenFlocked.com.
The lawsuit alleges, on information and belief, that Murkerson’s vehicle was placed on a “hot list” for persistent alerts each time it passed a Flock camera, rather than a one-time query. Details for three of the five searches made by Coweta County employees have not been disclosed and are “likely to reflect misconduct,” the lawsuit alleges.
Additionally, Murkerson noticed an unprecedented presence by sheriff’s deputies around his home, his route home from work, in the parking lot of his business, and at two roadblocks, one of which was set up at a time that would intercept him on his commute home. Murkerson ended a six-year business relationship servicing a neighboring police department’s vehicles because he no longer felt safe continuing that work while he was being surveilled by Coweta County, the lawsuit says.
In August 2026, the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office announced that an internal audit of its employees’ Flock use had flagged employee accounts, that three employees resigned before the audit was completed, and that it had asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to conduct an independent investigation, according to the lawsuit.
The treatment of Murkerson was not an aberration, and appears to be another example of abuse and misuse of the Flock camera network and a lack of controls, safeguards, and requirements of officers to run a search for a specific investigation. At least 50 law enforcement officers nationwide have been charged with or accused of misusing automated license plate reader systems including Flock as of August 2026, according to the lawsuit.
“This was not an isolated incident. Each week, there are news headlines in cities across the country where law enforcement officers used Flock in illegal ways to surveil, stalk, harass, search, and invade the privacy of citizens who are going about their everyday lives — without a legitimate law enforcement purpose,” said Attorney Andrew Lampros, Co-Founder and Partner at Hall & Lampros, LLP.
While Murkerson was being surveilled, Flock’s platform required only that the user enter text in a free-form field and it accepted whatever was typed such as “investigation,” and on 20 separate occasions the Medford, Oregon Police Department typed “hehehe” as the reason for running a Flock search. The only justifications entered for the surveillance of Murkerson’s vehicle were “info” and “37” — neither of which corresponds to any investigation, case, incident, warrant, or call for service because there was no such justification for the searches, the lawsuit alleges.
Running a citizen’s license plate and identity through law enforcement databases for a non-law-enforcement purpose is a crime in Georgia, and obtaining personal information from a motor vehicle record for an impermissible purpose is a violation of federal law. Flock has since announced that case codes and its misuse detection tool will become mandatory for law enforcement customers by the end of 2026.
The complaint asserts claims against the deputies under the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment, the Georgia RICO Act, and the Georgia Computer Systems Protection Act, and for invasion of privacy. It asserts supervisory and policymaker claims against Sheriff Lenn Wood — and, in the alternative, Coweta County — arising from the procurement, renewal, and continuation of the Flock contract. On behalf of a class of people whose vehicles were searched on Flock’s platform by Georgia law enforcement without any recorded investigative justification, the complaint asserts claims against Flock for negligence, breach of the legal duties imposed by Georgia’s license plate reader statute, and invasion of privacy.
The case is Murkerson v. Flock Group, Inc., et al., No. 3:26-cv-00223-LMM (N.D. Ga.).
Anyone who believes their license plate was searched by a Georgia law enforcement agency without a legitimate reason — including people who find their plate on HaveIBeenFlocked.com — may contact Hall & Lampros at 404-876-8100 or info@hallandlampros.com
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Hall & Lampros, LLP was founded in 2003 by Christopher B. Hall and Andrew Lampros and has since become one of the leading firms in the Southeast for personal injury, class actions, civil rights, employment and discrimination litigation. The firm has obtained numerous multimillion-dollar settlements and jury verdicts for clients nationwide, including cases involving wrongful death, industrial accidents, vehicle crashes, wage and overtime cases, and class action cases against insurance companies. Learn more at hallandlampros.com.
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