A federal civil rights lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin alleges that Waukesha County Sheriff’s deputies conducted more than 100 Flock Safety licence plate searches targeting a Navy veteran after he lawfully filmed a traffic stop, using the automated surveillance network without any legitimate law enforcement purpose.
The case, Jones v. Shayhorn et al (Case 2:2025cv01886), was filed on 1 December 2025. The named defendants include Deputies Brandon Shayhorn and Brett Kromrey, Waukesha County, the Village of Lisbon, and several insurance companies.
The Arrest That Started the Flock Safety Licence Plate Trail
On 4 May 2025, Napoleon Jones was standing in a private parking lot in Sussex, Wisconsin, when he observed a traffic stop being conducted by a Lisbon police officer working outside his jurisdiction. Jones, a United States Navy veteran, found the sight unusual and used his phone to record the stop from a safe distance without interfering.
Attorney Nathaniel Cade told reporters that Shayhorn was recorded on video ‘mean mugging’ Jones during the stop, according to Minnesota Lawyer. After Jones returned to his car, Shayhorn activated his lights and pulled Jones over within the same private car park, citing an unreadable temporary licence plate on Jones’ brand-new vehicle.
Jones refused to produce his driving licence, arguing the stop was unlawful on private property. Shayhorn and Deputy Brett Kromrey then opened Jones’ car door, pulled him from the vehicle, and handcuffed him. According to reporting on the lawsuit, the deputies transported Jones to the Waukesha County Jail without advising him of his rights and without permitting him to make a telephone call.
Jones was booked on a charge of resisting an officer by not providing identification. He was released after five hours with no citation and no criminal charge. An internal memorandum from Waukesha County Sheriff’s Lt. Kent Krause, reviewed in the course of the litigation, confirmed that Shayhorn had never observed Jones driving on a public road and that only a narrow category of traffic laws applied on private property, according to the Wisconsin Law Journal.
Over 100 Searches With No Stated Criminal Basis
Jones filed a citizen’s complaint against Shayhorn the following day. While gathering material in response to that complaint, his attorney, Nate Cade, received a Flock Safety photograph of Jones’ white BMW dated 30 May 2025, twenty-five days after the original incident. That single image prompted further investigation, which uncovered over 100 Flock searches for a white BMW conducted in the weeks after the arrest.
Some searches were carried out by Shayhorn himself. During depositions, Shayhorn and other deputies said they had been directed to conduct the searches by their lieutenant in connection with the citizen’s complaint. Jones amended his lawsuit in July 2026 to add the additional officers, alleging they searched the Flock database without ‘a legitimate law enforcement purpose’ as required by the county’s user agreement, according to GM Today.
The lawsuit brings claims for unreasonable search and seizure, violation of Jones’ First Amendment rights, and negligent hiring and training. The Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department has declined to address the substance of the allegations. Lt. Nicholas Wenzel provided a written statement: ‘Because this matter involves pending litigation, we are not able to comment on the specific allegations or the parties’ claims.’
A Wider Pattern of Flock Use in Waukesha County
The Jones case sits within a broader dispute over licence plate reader surveillance in Waukesha County. The conservative law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has filed a separate legal challenge against eleven municipalities in the county and Waukesha County itself, arguing that sharing Flock Safety database access without a search warrant violates the Fourth Amendment. Wisconsin Public Radio reports that more than 120 Flock cameras are installed across Waukesha County, with all eleven named municipalities holding contracts with Flock Safety.
The ACLU of Wisconsin has told a county finance committee that Flock’s information-sharing network gives external agencies, including the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and Border Patrol, access to licence plate data from Wisconsin jurisdictions without a warrant or meaningful oversight. The ACLU estimates Flock’s network spans at least 5,000 police departments nationally.
Jon McCray Jones, policy analyst for the ACLU of Wisconsin, has said the Waukesha Sheriff’s use of Flock has extended ‘far beyond the public safety justifications for which these tools were originally sold,’ and that the systems ‘were introduced to the public as a means to reduce violent crime and aid in solving serious investigations’ but have been used for purposes such as evictions, according to the Wisconsin Examiner.
Flock Safety‘s own licence plate reader policy states that customers must designate administrators as custodians of the system and are encouraged to implement a regular auditing schedule to ensure access is made by authorised persons for legitimate purposes. Whether Waukesha County applied that auditing standard to the searches at the centre of the Jones lawsuit is one of the questions the court will now have to answer.
