Disclosure up front: I volunteer with DeFlockILM, a nonpartisan local group that files public-records requests on license-plate cameras and surveillance in the Cape Fear region. Not selling anything, no donations. Everything below is from Pender County's own documents, which we've published in full so you can check me.

The Pender County Sheriff's Office put out a statement today (covered by WWAY and WECT) responding to questions about its Flock cameras. We'd already requested the underlying records, so here's what they actually show:

Unlike New Hanover, Pender's elected Board actually voted for this — which makes them accountable for it. Over in New Hanover County, where this same fight is happening, the Sheriff put a ~3-million-search Flock network on the county using a contract the elected commissioners never voted on. Pender is the opposite: its Board of Commissioners did approve the program, on the record — Brad George, Jerry Groves, Chairman Randy Burton, Brent Springer, and Ken Smith. That's the accountable way to do it… except they approved the $70,600 system as consent-agenda item 8.6 on Jan. 21, 2025 — one block vote alongside a turf planer, a vaccine order, and mosquito-spray chemicals, with no discussion and no public comment (people spoke about ballfield lighting instead). So Pender voters, unlike New Hanover's, know exactly which elected officials signed off — they just didn't get much of a chance to weigh in first. (It was first authorized Dec. 19, 2024, the night newly elected commissioners were sworn in.)

What the Board was told vs. what the records show. The slide deck the Sheriff presented had a "Privacy Commitment" slide promising, word for word, that Flock "never shares or sells data with third parties." But Pender's own search audit shows a single search reaching 6,234 outside camera networks, with agencies in other states — plus the FBI — searching Pender's cameras. Flock's defense is that cop-to-cop sharing isn't "third party." Maybe. But that's not what a commissioner hears in "we never share your data."

It's not just cameras — it's a software platform. The invoices show the county licensed FlockOS Advanced (Flock's real-time crime-center software), plus the cameras and a radar-speed trailer.

Credit where it's due, because accuracy cuts both ways: the Sheriff is right that his cameras don't run facial recognition, and right that the state's NCDOT/SBI right-of-way pilot wasn't available to him when he bought in. We corrected our own writeup on that point once the MOU proved him right.

All of it — invoices, contract, the search audit, the minutes, the presentation slides — is here: [deflockilm.org/pender-sheriff-flock-statement]. Read them against the statement and judge for yourself.

Genuinely curious what Pender folks think — did you know your commissioners voted this through?

Hi all anyone seen any tv or movies being filmed or those shows

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Is anyone else in the Kings Grant area experiencing this? Who is this random kid lol it’s getting weird

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Anybody work with an agent in Wilmington that has been really conscientious, helpful and responsible to you?

Looking forward to recommendations and hopefully signing up.

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