GBI: Internal audit found five Albany, Georgia officers misused Flock license-plate data

On July 6, 2026, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced it had arrested and charged five former Albany, Georgia police officers — Tytianna Davis, 27; Jade Jackson, 32; Nicholas Richardson, 30; Brittney Smith, 23; and Issac Whitus, 24 — with misuse of license plate data and violation of oath of office, following an internal Albany Police Department audit of its Flock Safety automated license-plate-reader (ALPR) system.

The Albany Police Department requested the GBI investigation on June 25, 2026, after an internal audit of the Flock system found the officers had accessed it on multiple occasions and used the retained plate data for non-law-enforcement purposes. GBI's charging announcement listed the counts against each officer individually: Davis faced five counts of misuse of license plate data, Jackson two, Richardson eleven, Smith one, and Whitus two, with each also charged with a single count of violation of oath of office. All five were no longer employed by the department and were booked into the Dougherty County Jail on July 6.

Flock's automated license-plate-reader network, deployed by thousands of law-enforcement agencies nationwide, logs plate scans that are retained and searchable by officers who enter a stated reason for each query; nothing in the system stops an officer from running a search for a personal, non-law-enforcement purpose, and misuse is caught only after the fact, through audits or complaints. Albany Police Chief Michael Persley said, "The bottom line is when we find people who have misused resources, we're going to hold them accountable." The GBI investigation remains active, with the case to be referred to the Dougherty Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office for prosecution.