Two Reynoldsburg officers left the department after its own audits flagged their Flock searches. One retired before the investigation finished.
Reynoldsburg police leadership found suspected misuse of its Flock system by two officers inside about forty-five days, through what the department calls proactive internal audits. Chief Curtis Baker ordered Internal Affairs investigations into both. According to the Fraternal Order of Police, one officer resigned and the other retired before those investigations could be completed, which is the detail worth sitting with: an audit caught it, and the process still ended without a finding. The department declined to say what the officers actually searched for, citing the personnel matter. Residents are now asking the city to remove the cameras. Mayor Joe Begeny says Reynoldsburg will keep evaluating the programme and notes that Flock has improved its auditing tools, and the Ohio FOP argues isolated misuse should not end a system that recovers stolen vehicles. This desk records it as misuse caught by the operator rather than by a journalist or a records request, which is a better failure mode than most entries here, and still one where nobody was held to a finding.
From the reporting
- Two officers left: one resigned, one retired, both before Internal Affairs completed its investigation, per the Fraternal Order of Police.
- Detected by the department's own proactive audits within roughly a 45-day window, not by outside reporting.
- Chief Curtis Baker: "The use of any police database or computer system, to include Flock Safety, for non-law enforcement purposes is serious and will not be tolerated."
- The department declined to describe what was searched, citing the personnel matter. Other outlets have reported specific query counts; those figures are not recorded here because their pages could not be read directly.
- Spectrum News reports the matter was referred to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation for possible further investigation.
- Mayor Joe Begeny says the city will keep evaluating the programme and credits Flock with improving its auditing tools.
- Ohio FOP executive vice president Brian Toth defends the technology: "Sometimes we as officers are human. We make mistakes. When it happens, they must be held accountable."
- Reynoldsburg is a Columbus suburb, and this sits alongside the Columbus audit that found more than 15,000 immigration-related searches of that city's network.
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