A weekend incident in which a Flock search led Lexington police to surround the wrong home has sparked widespread online criticism of the city's use of the surveillance technology.
According to the Lexington Police Department, officers responded to a call in the McConnell's Trace neighborhood for a "felonious assault with a weapon" at around 3 a.m. Saturday. Witnesses provided the suspect's vehicle description and the last-known direction it was headed.
From there, the department said it used footage from its network of automated license plate readers, Flock, to attempt to locate the vehicle.
"Due to the time of day there was only one return matching the suspect vehicle, resulting in the response to the residence," Lexington Police Department public information officer Brian Hall wrote in a statement to WEKU. "A license plate for the (suspect's) vehicle was not known until after the original query search with only the description entered."
Automated license plate readers have been under intense scrutiny from the public recently. Last month, residents organized an opposition campaign before the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council, arguing the technology can be easily misused and contribute to mass surveillance.
In Saturday's incident, the technology led police to the Hartland neighborhood home of Will Penn, 33, and his grandmother, around 4 a.m. At least four police cars can be seen in doorbell camera footage from the home, near Tates Creek Road.
Penn posted the footage to social media and it has since been shared thousands of times on Facebook.
"We went to the gas station and then went to a taco truck (Saturday) night, and we got home at 3:29 with the food and everything, and then, I think it was 3:56, the doorbell camera on the front of the house picked up a Lexington police car with the with their rooftop white lights on," Penn said.
He told WEKU "at least 10" officers surrounded his home. One officer is seen with his gun unholstered before knocking the front door.
After Penn and his fiancee opened the door, the officer told them they were not suspects. The group of police left around 10 minutes later.
"We are not looking for you," the officer can be heard saying in the captured video. "There was an incident tonight which…the vehicle we're trying to find is eerily identical to yours."
In a statement, the Lexington Police Department wrote, "Upon making contact with the residents at the address where the vehicle was located, further investigation enabled officers to determine the vehicle was not the suspect vehicle in question and the scene was cleared."
Officials would not specify how that determination was made.
Penn said the interaction with police caused unnecessary stress, and he's scared to drive his truck again.
"If you had just knocked on a door without weapons and without a million cops out there? Completely different situation," Penn said. "You're investigating, you follow protocol — but obviously you do not follow protocol — and you scared the life out of my grandmother. You scared me."
Penn also said he's skeptical his truck matches the description relayed to police.
"It's got a weather station, and it's got an antenna and light bar on the roof and LED pods that are facing backwards," he said of his truck. "I storm chase, so I've got it set up for that. There's no truck in this city that looks remotely anything like this truck."
The suspect still has not been located, according to the police department.
How does Lexington use Flock cameras?
Lexington has 125 flock cameras, which the city says it uses to gather leads for investigations.
"ALPR's are utilized as leads and only one component in an investigation," Hall wrote in response to WEKU's questions. "This was not a misidentification, it was following up on a vehicle that was located matching the description provided by witnesses. Further investigation in this incident resulted in no charges being placed in relation to this particular vehicle."
According to an investigation from WKYT, 96% of searches tied to Lexington's Flock system came from out-of-state or federal agencies, with just 63,000 searches of 7 million total made by Lexington police.
Earlier this month, Mayor Linda Gorton announced she would organize an independent panel to review the city's contract with Flock. In the announcement, she expressed support for the department and its use of the system.
"I do have a concern about this if it goes away, our ability to solve these crimes," Gorton told reporters earlier this month. "We've found a lot of missing persons through these license plate readers, so they do have a wonderful advantage, and we are not surveilling people."
Raquel Carter, Gorton's opponent in Lexington's mayoral election, said she opposes the use of such technology in an emailed statement.
"We are thankful that the outcome wasn't worse," Carter stated, in part, to WEKU. "But as we continue to discuss, people are concerned about these Flock cameras and the AI technology that powers them. We cannot keep ignoring the concerns. We need to stop their use and push for legislation to manage this technology and whatever comes next."
Online reaction to the Hartland incident
As of Tuesday morning, a Facebook post sharing footage from the incident at Penn's home to the "Deflock America" public group has nearly 6,000 shares and nearly 4,000 comments. Many of those echo concerns about privacy and surveillance.
Another post on Reddit has nearly 1,000 upvotes and more than 200 comments.
"...these are serious situations that put innocent people in potentially critical danger over nothing they themselves are even involved in," one top commenter on Facebook wrote.
Copyright 2026 WEKU
