The Flock traffic camera is missing from the mounting rig at the Highway 13 and U.S. 2 roundabout.
Seth Carlson / Ashland Daily Press
Two Flock surveillance cameras were stolen from a roundabout west of Ashland, and whoever took them cut down one pole and set a fire trying to bring down the other.
The blaze burned a radius of roughly 60 to 100 feet around the downed pole and required a fire department response to put out.
Bayfield County Sheriff Tony Williams said the thefts happened in late July. No arrests have been made, but he said investigators have pretty good leads.
Somebody stole them and we are just waiting for them to be put back up, Williams said Aug. 17.
They actually cut down a different pole and started an arson, a big grass fire, trying to burn the other pole, he said.
Williams said he did not have an exact figure for the theft and damage but estimated it at $6,000 to $10,000. Bayfield County is billed $2,500 or $3,000 per camera, depending on which contract covers the unit.
Under the countys agreement with Flock Safety, all camera hardware is owned by the company, not the county, and title never passes to Bayfield County. The contract says that when a unit is lost, stolen or damaged, the county may request that Flock replace it for a fee, and that Flock is under no obligation to replace or repair anything.
The two cameras were among six automated license plate readers the county operates through Flock Safety, an Atlanta company. The devices photograph the rear of passing vehicles and read their plates. The county separately operates two fixed video cameras, a different Flock product called Condor. Williams said neither video camera was at the roundabout and neither was taken.
The Daily Press photographed one of the stolen cameras at the site in December 2025.
Williams said the plate readers do not photograph people.
There is no facial recognition, it doesnt run your plate. It doesnt know who you are, it doesnt know who is in the car, he said. There are federal court rulings that say it is not a violation of any Fourth Amendment rights.
He said the system has been worth the money.
They are a great tool. It has helped us solve burglaries and thefts. It has helped us locate missing people, helped us locate suicidal people. The time it helps save us in investigations is just crazy. Weve recovered like eight stolen vehicles, and thats the small stuff, he said. The bigger things are that it has helped us locate people who are suffering from mental health crisis and we were able to help locate them and get them the help they need. Without the cameras we would not have been able to do that.
Williams said the county receives alerts about vehicles connected to people wanted for crimes or believed to be missing or in crisis.
Without the cameras, someone who is wanted or missing and drives by the roundabout, unless we happen to know the plate number and the car, and happen to be sitting there, we are not even going to know that they drove by, he said.
He said the system logs how it is being used and flags unusual activity, such as a single plate being searched an abnormal number of times.
Then we go in and verify that the plate is being run for a proper reason, he said.
Williams said he had no immediate plans to add cameras.
I am happy with the six we have right now, he said.
Investigators have not linked the thefts to anyone involved in organized opposition to the cameras.
The Flock traffic camera is missing from the mounting rig at the Highway 13 and U.S. 2 roundabout.
Seth Carlson / Ashland Daily Press
Adam Baker, an Ashland information technology professional who runs , a site campaigning against the spread of plate readers in Ashland and Bayfield counties, said cutting cameras down is the wrong approach.
There is a lot of discourse about this online. There are a lot of people who advocate this kind of thing, but Ive got to say right off the bat that is not the right way to go about things, he said. Not only is it just going to get replaced, its going to cost your city more money, you are putting yourself in jeopardy and now you are letting them set the narrative, they are like, Hey look, criminals dont like these things, and people are going down and doing criminal actions, cutting them down. So you are actually shooting everybody else in the foot by taking the law into your own hands.
Baker, who has obtained county Flock records through open records requests and provided copies to the Daily Press, said his objection is to the technology itself.
Flock cameras, long story short, are an invasion of privacy. They definitely can do some good, but that in my opinion does not outweigh the potential for negative. There are multiple stories of them being misused, used to stalk people. So, any good that the system promises to do is greatly outweighed by the potential damage that it has, he said.
He said opponents should work through local government instead.
I tell people if you have the energy to do anything, talk to the people around you, get in front of your local council, figure out what you can do locally to spread the word and push back to cut funding, get the councilmen on your side, do what you can to legally and properly push back, he said.
Because the cameras photograph every vehicle that passes, Baker said, drivers have no practical way to opt out.
We need to say no, he said.
