St. Paul will take down its two city-owned Flock Safety license-plate cameras, and the City Council has declined to expand the police department’s drone program — two decisions in two weeks that put the city on the side of residents who told the council they no longer trust the tools.
On Aug. 26 the council voted 7-0 for a resolution asking the mayor’s administration and Ramsey County to end their use of Flock cameras, according to the Pioneer Press. The resolution is nonbinding: the council can ask other bodies to act but cannot order them to.
“It’s our understanding our St. Paul employees have used this technology responsibly, but our public trust in these tools has eroded, and I’m very concerned about it,” Council Member Saura Jost, who sponsored the resolution with Council President Rebecca Noecker, said before the vote, KSTP reported.
That evening Mayor Kaohly Her and Police Chief Axel Henry issued a joint statement announcing the removal. “We understand and share the concerns raised by our community about other jurisdictions accessing data during Operation Metro Surge,” they said. “We are also encouraging the Minnesota State Legislature to create a statewide standard that creates a balance between privacy and public safety needs. In the interim, the two cameras owned by the City of Saint Paul will be removed.”
Noecker said, and St. Paul police confirmed, that some Minnesota agencies with access to St. Paul’s camera data had shared it with federal agencies without the city’s knowledge; police have since restricted access to the seven-county metro. “Since then, things have been tightened up to keep that from happening,” Noecker told KSTP. “But that just goes to show how easy it is.”
The city’s two cameras are the minority of the Flock cameras inside St. Paul. Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher operates the rest — 10 by KSTP’s count, nine by the Pioneer Press’s — and he is keeping them. “I’m all for safeguards, and we have put several safeguards,” Fletcher told KSTP. “But no, we’re going to continue to use the technology, and I’m confident our Ramsey County Board will see the positives.” Fletcher said the cameras are used mostly for alerts on stolen vehicles, that no outside agency can now search the county’s data directly, and that the county reviews all searches every two weeks.
Drones: not now
Two weeks later, on Sept. 9, the council declined to authorize a police application for a U.S. Department of Justice grant of up to $200,000 that would have added three docked drones for 2027–28. There was no vote. The item was withdrawn, Noecker said, “because this council does not support an expansion of our drone program until a number of questions and concerns are addressed, and we will not be authorizing this grant application,” the Pioneer Press reported.
The council had received 37 public comments against the grant and four in favor. St. Paul police have used drones since 2023 and since May 30 have launched them from the rooftops of three city buildings to reach a scene ahead of officers. The department said the current program continues unchanged.
Noecker said afterward that residents have raised “legitimate questions and concerns” about where drone data is stored and under what conditions the drones fly, and that expanding the program before those are answered “just felt inappropriate at this time.”
Insight News did not interview St. Paul residents for this report; the council record and local broadcast and print reporting are its sources, and the primary council documents were not independently opened.
