Four former Savannah Police Department employees were arrested on Friday after an investigation into the alleged misuse of the Flock Safety license plate reader system.
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The former employees have been booked into the Chatham County Jail, local broadcaster WTOC reported. Out of them, three are former police officers, while the fourth worked as a community service specialist. All four had been fired from the Savannah Police Department earlier in August.
It all started with internal investigation by the Savannah Police Department on July 27. Two days later, the department asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) to look into the case.
The internal audit examined 39,000 Flock searches made so far this year. Of those, 127 searches were flagged for review. The police department determined that 34 of the searches were unjustified. Six employees were ultimately fired, although only four have been arrested so far.
Flock searches on family, acquaintances
The four arrested employees are 48-year-old Marquis Dillard, 23-year-old Donald Phillips, 39-year-old Matthew Rich and 34-year-old Calandic Thomas.
Dillard, Phillips and Rich are former officers. Each faces two counts of misuse of a license plate reader system and two counts of violation of oath of office. Thomas, a former community service specialist, faces two counts of misuse of a license plate reader system.
According to the City of Savannah, Dillard spent 10 years with the Savannah Police Department and most recently worked as a homicide detective before his termination. Phillips had worked for the department for two-and-a-half years. Rich served with the department for 13 years before he was fired. Thomas worked as a community service specialist for just under three years.
The four former employees are accused of running Flock license plate searches on personal acquaintances and family members. One of the officers is also accused of giving an outside agency unauthorised access to the system.
The GBI confirmed that the outside agency is also part of its investigation. However, it has not identified the agency.
Flock license plate reader systems allow law enforcement agencies to search information collected by cameras. Savannah has 106 Flock cameras, and Georgia has the second-most Flock cameras of any state in the US.
