(KNOX/WCCO/Valley News Live) -The St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office in northern Minnesota has ended its contract with Flock Safety. This comes after the city of Duluth ended its contract with Flock in August.
The cameras have been criticized nationwide over security and surveillance concerns.
Several other cities and counties in Minnesota have canceled their Flock contracts. St. Paul recently removed its cameras, as did Columbia Heights and West St. Paul. Winona’s cameras were stolen and their police department has decided to not replace them.
Sherburne County in east central Minnesota also announced it would stop using the cameras.
Several protests have been held in the Fargo Moorhead area, calling for the cameras to be removed there. One protest turned violent, but didn’t get hostile because of disagreements about the cameras. The protest in August turned violent within 40 minutes because of political differences.
Meanwhile, the cities of Fargo and West Fargo spent over $230,000 combined on Flock Cameras last year. Fargo paid a total of $133,000 and West Fargo paid $99,500.
There are 26 cameras in Fargo’s Flock Network, with 21 fixed license-plate readers and five pan-tilt-zoom cameras downtown along Broadway
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