The Macon County Sheriff’s Office has released its Flock Camera Audit Report as a free 159-page PDF covering activity from January 1, 2024, through October 13, 2026. The document, now posted under the Downloads section of the Sheriff’s Office webpage, contains thousands of individual search records logged by deputies using the automated license plate reader system. To make the data more accessible, the contents of the PDF have been extracted and converted into a fully searchable spreadsheet available in both Excel and HTML table formats on Google Drive. [EXCEL SPREADSHEET LINK] [INSERT HTML TABLE LINK] ORIGINAL PDF LINK]
The release follows a public records request filed on July 11, 2026, by independent journalist Bobby Coggins of Macon Media. Citing the North Carolina Public Records Act, Coggins sought contracts, Board of Commissioners approvals, usage policies, camera locations, performance statistics, privacy assessments, and related correspondence concerning the Flock Safety system. The request was one of at least five substantially similar filings received by the county.
In an October 8 response, County Attorney Eric Ridenour informed requesters that the Sheriff’s Office had regained access to the final 12 months of historical Flock data after the county’s contract with the company ended. He estimated that reviewing, compiling, and redacting the full set of records would cost approximately $3,765 in labor, based on work already completed on three of the twelve months by three employees at average hourly rates of $27.43, $33.04, and $44.12. Additional copying charges of $250–$500 were projected if the records had to be produced on paper (an estimated 5,000–10,000 pages). The total preliminary estimate ranged from $4,015 to $4,265. Ridenour also offered to share contact information among the requesters, with their consent, so they could coordinate and potentially split the costs. License plate data entered by law enforcement was noted as confidential and not subject to disclosure under state statute.
On the morning of November 10, Ridenour sent a follow-up email stating that, due to the volume of requests, the Sheriff’s Office had posted all Flock-related materials determined to be public records under Chapter 132 of the North Carolina General Statutes. The Audit Report PDF and other documents were made available at no charge on the county’s website. The move effectively resolved the cost barrier for the primary dataset that had been the focus of the requests.
The 159-page report itself is a detailed log of searches conducted in the Flock system. Each entry typically includes a unique ID, the name of the user (many of whom are now listed as deactivated), the organization, the number of networks searched, the time frame queried, the stated reason for the search, the exact search timestamp, and the search type (such as “lookup – Mobile” or “search – Mobile”). Common reasons listed in the data include investigation, narcotics, drug investigation, and stolen vehicle inquiries. With the data now available in both the original PDF and the newly prepared Excel and HTML formats, members of the public can more readily search, filter, and analyze how the system was used during the period it was active in Macon County.
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Published at 1.40pm on Tuesday, November 10, 2026
Author: Bobby Coggins
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