A Savannah, Georgia, police officer has lost her job after she shared her login for the department's Flock Safety license-plate camera system with her husband, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, who used it to run 983 searches, according to internal records reported by Gizmodo and local stations WJCL and WTOC.
Source: Gizmodo via The Cooldown
Former officer Amber Harpe admitted giving her username and password to her husband, Tyler Harpe, because he did not have his own Flock account through the Department of Homeland Security. An internal audit flagged heavy activity on her account between January and July 2026 — 983 search entries covering 97 license plates across Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Maryland and New Jersey.
According to WJCL, 788 of the searches were tied to South Carolina plates, and investigators noted that most of the registered owners identified in that group were Hispanic. In a July 27 interview, Amber Harpe told investigators she did not recognise many of the names and that her husband had conducted most of the searches.
‘Every name I ran was an ICE target’
Tyler Harpe told investigators on August 3 that he asked for the login to locate people while agents were out on the street, after target packages and arrest warrants had been prepared. “Every name that I ever ran was an ICE target,” he said. Asked why ICE lacked its own Flock access, Amber Harpe replied: “No one really wants to work with them, sir.”
Investigators did not find that Amber Harpe violated Georgia's automated license-plate reader law, and she was not criminally charged. She was fired for violating department policy barring unauthorised access to police software. An interim major had recommended a one-day suspension, but Assistant Police Chief Robert Gavin denied her appeal in August and the firing stood. In her appeal she wrote that every search was “for law enforcement use only and not for personal gain.”
Harpe was one of six Savannah police employees fired in August after Flock audits; the Georgia Bureau of Investigation later arrested four of the others over alleged personal searches, though Harpe was not among those charged, according to the reporting. ICE is investigating Tyler Harpe's involvement, WTOC reported.
In a joint statement to WJCL, Savannah's mayor's office and police department said an outside agency's investigative purpose “does not, by itself, authorize access to SPD's system,” and officials called unauthorised access to police technology a breach of department policy and public trust. Savannah police do not list ICE among the agencies they share Flock data with.
The case has landed in a wider national argument over Flock camera networks: NPR has reported that fears local plate data could aid federal immigration enforcement have led some cities to deactivate cameras or cancel contracts, and an Oakland advocacy group, Secure Justice, has tracked 446 local actions to terminate, suspend or not renew Flock contracts.