ATF analyst used Richmond police license-plate-reader access for immigration enforcement, violating department policy

On July 8, 2025, the Richmond Police Department announced it had terminated an ATF analyst's access to the department's license-plate-reader program after discovering the analyst had used it for immigration enforcement, in violation of RPD's operational standards. The analyst requested access on February 7, 2025 to assist ATF agents and task-force officers with firearms and violent-crime investigations in the Richmond area, and an RPD program administrator granted it; that administrator has since left the department. In March 2025, ATF's mission expanded to include immigration enforcement, and that same month the analyst used RPD's system to help locate four detainees who had escaped an ICE detention facility in Farmville, Virginia.

Over the course of the access, the analyst queried 49 unique license plates, generating more than 400 results. RPD's own review found 35 of the 49 queries tied to ATF's traditional firearms and violent-crime work, and 14 tied to Homeland Security Investigations' immigration-enforcement matters. Two of the analyst's queries also pulled Illinois vehicle data using "ICE" in the query field, a violation of Illinois law restricting its own network to non-immigration purposes; RPD learned of the misuse on June 11, 2025, when the system's vendor, Flock Safety, flagged those Illinois searches.

RPD Chief Rick Edwards terminated the analyst's access immediately and barred all federal agencies from the department's license-plate-reader program going forward. "ATF is a valued partner in our efforts to combat violent crime in Richmond," Edwards said, "but their analyst should not have been granted access to our system -- and absolutely should not have used it for immigration enforcement purposes." He added that had ATF formally requested access for immigration enforcement, "I would have denied it." ATF Special Agent in Charge Anthony Spotswood said the agency regretted the situation and that the queries, while not compliant with RPD's guidelines, involved criminal activity rather than civil immigration enforcement.