Three Coweta Sheriff's employees resign after audit flags Flock Safety camera use

Three Coweta County Sheriff's Office employees have resigned after a routine internal audit flagged their use of the department's Flock Safety automated license plate reader system — and before investigators could find out exactly what they were doing with it.

According to the sheriff's office, department leaders met individually with the three employees to discuss their activity on the Flock Safety system. Each one chose to resign during those meetings, before the audit process was completed and before a formal internal investigation could begin. The agency has not identified the former employees or described what specific activity triggered the review.

The sheriff's office has since asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to conduct an independent probe, saying the move is intended to ensure transparency and maintain public trust. The agency said all future questions about the investigation will be directed to the GBI.

Employees are expected to use law enforcement technology lawfully, ethically and in accordance with agency policy.— Coweta County Sheriff's Office

The Flock Safety system logs every search permanently and ties it to an individual user — a design the company says makes misconduct easier to detect. The sheriff's office said it uses routine auditing tools to monitor employee access, and it was those tools that identified the accounts requiring additional review.

In response to what the audit found, the agency said it is providing additional training to authorized users on proper system use, agency policy, and employee accountability, and will continue using auditing and review procedures going forward.

The resignations come as law enforcement agencies across the country face growing scrutiny over automated license plate reader systems. A Washington Post investigation found at least 50 officers nationwide have been charged or accused of improperly using the technology, including 46 cases involving Flock Safety specifically. Georgia is among at least eight states where unauthorized use of license plate reader data is a criminal offense — classified as a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature. In recent months, officers and deputies have been arrested or fired in Habersham County, DeKalb County, the Albany area, Fayetteville, Cherokee County, and elsewhere in Georgia, according to Fox 5 Atlanta.

Flock Safety, whose system is used by more than 6,000 agencies and 140,000 users monthly, has said it supports accountability and that officers who abuse the technology should be investigated and held responsible.

With the GBI now leading the inquiry, the scope and findings of the investigation are expected to be handled outside the sheriff's office. No timeline for the GBI's review has been announced.

Why it matters — When law enforcement employees resign mid-audit over how they used a surveillance tool that tracks every vehicle in the county, residents have a direct stake in knowing what the GBI finds — and whether the system meant to catch criminals was being used on them.

Reported by ga.us, times-herald.com, fox5atlanta.com, 11alive.com