Grand Rapids tells the city manager to wall off Flock data from 287(g) departments

GRAND RAPIDS — City commissioners on Thursday told City Manager Mark Washington to find a way to stop police departments that have signed immigration-enforcement deals with the federal government from using Grand Rapids’ Flock license-plate data. They did not cancel the Flock contract.

Melissa Frick’s account in MLive says the direction came in a work session, not a finished ordinance. Grand Rapids does not have a 287(g) agreement, the arrangement that lets a local department do some federal immigration work. The point, Mayor David LaGrand said, is the other departments that do. “If you have one, that makes you a law enforcement agency that we don’t want to collaborate with on a level,” he said. He called it a statement of disagreement, on top of the city’s own policy against signing one.

Frick reported that, as of Nov. 10, eight Michigan agencies had 287(g) agreements: the sheriff’s offices in Livingston, Crawford, Roscommon, Calhoun, Berrien and Jackson counties, plus West Branch police and Taylor police. None of those is Grand Rapids. The restriction would apply to who can see this city’s plate-reader data, not to a Grand Rapids officer’s own immigration authority.

Twenty-nine cameras, and a contract that runs to 2027

Grand Rapids police have used some form of automated plate reader since 2012 and have contracted with Flock Safety since 2024. Frick reported 29 Flock cameras in the city. The contract ends in June 2027. The plan had been to ask other vendors for bids and bring the top bid to the commission in May, after a Flock audit in April. LaGrand said he is “seriously disinclined to use the same vendor going forward” and pushed to move that search up. City staff told the commission that rushing the bids could cost the April audit and the months of data that go with it. Washington said he would see whether the search can move faster without losing the audit.

Third Ward Commissioner Marshall Kilgore wanted the contract ended now. He told MLive it “needs to be ended,” that the technology has not proved responsible or ethical, and that residents have said they do not want it. He pointed to Indianapolis, where he said five officers were recently charged with misusing a department’s plate-reader system, a case ABC News reported. The rest of the commission did not join that call. Washington’s summary was that Thursday was “a positive step in the direction of creating more reform to more responsibly use the technology versus elimination of it.”

What was not decided

No ordinance was adopted. No camera was ordered down. Police, in Frick’s account, still describe the readers as a way to identify vehicles tied to violent crimes faster. The new instruction is narrower: look for a way to keep 287(g) agencies out of the data, and look at whether a new vendor can be chosen sooner than May without skipping the April audit. LaGrand’s “disinclined” is not a vote to drop Flock. Kilgore’s proposal was informal, and it did not carry the commission.

The photograph is City Hall. It is not a camera pole and it is not the work session.

Sources:
MLive, Melissa Frick, “Commission eyes limits on Flock data sharing amid privacy concerns in Grand Rapids,” Nov. 12, 2026, https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2026/11/commission-eyes-limits-on-flock-data-sharing-amid-privacy-concerns-in-grand-rapids.html
Photo: WMrapids, “Calder Plaza, Grand Rapids City Hall.jpg”, Wikimedia Commons, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACalder_Plaza%2C_Grand_Rapids_City_Hall.jpg

Grand Rapids

Tags: Grand Rapids · Police · Flock Safety · City Commission