Richmond County sheriff's lieutenant misused Flock database for 100+ personal searches; fired, charged

On July 20, 2026, the Richmond County (Augusta, Georgia) Sheriff's Office fired and arrested Lt. John McKenzie after a criminal investigation found he had misused the agency's Flock license-plate-reader system. Investigators determined McKenzie made more than 100 unauthorized searches of the Flock database for reasons unrelated to any criminal investigation, call for service, intelligence gathering, or other legitimate law-enforcement activity. McKenzie supervised the agency's Fleet Division. He was fired the same morning and turned himself in at the Charles B. Webster Detention Center, where he was charged with misuse of license plate readers and violation of oath of office.

The arrest grew out of the same Flock audit that led to the June 25, 2026 firing and arrest of former Deputy Jaquarius Yarbrough, who investigators said searched a woman's license plate 1,639 times to track her movements after their relationship ended. Reviewing records further after Yarbrough's arrest, investigators uncovered additional misuse by McKenzie and by two other Richmond County Sheriff's Office employees, Investigator Curtis Hoskins and Deputy Joshua Johnson, fired and arrested the same morning for separately misusing the same system — recorded as their own entries, since each of the three independently ran his own unauthorized searches rather than acting together. The Sheriff's Office has not released the specific searches McKenzie conducted or named the individuals targeted; multiple sources familiar with the investigation told The Augusta Press that some of the unauthorized searches across the three officers allegedly involved tracking women.

In a public statement, the Richmond County Sheriff's Office said access to the Flock system and other criminal-justice information systems is authorized only for official law-enforcement duties, and that "any personal use or unauthorized access is strictly prohibited and will not be tolerated." Capt. Danny Whitehead, an agency spokesperson, said the investigation remains open and that further arrests have not been ruled out. The case is part of a broader pattern of Flock-audit-driven firings across Georgia law enforcement in mid-2026, including five former Albany police officers arrested by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and firings in Greene County and Fayetteville.

Updates

2026-07 — Sheriff detailed new Flock access safeguards after arrests [3]

Following the arrests of McKenzie, Hoskins, and Johnson, Sheriff Eugene Brantley said the office had tightened access to its Flock license-plate-reader system, now requiring a case number, badge number, and stated reason before each search; had adopted a new AI auditing tool to flag searches for review; and had deputies sign updated policy acknowledgments, while noting the internal investigation remained active.

2026-09-04 — Two further arrests brought the total to six; access restricted to supervisors [4]

Sheriff Brantley said at a news conference that six Richmond County Sheriff's Office employees had now been arrested over Flock misuse, after Investigator Sean Morrow and Deputy Jose Ferrer were arrested earlier that week on the same charges. He said the six represent about 1.8% of the roughly 330 officers who had held access, that access is now restricted to on-shift supervisors and intelligence personnel rather than available to any officer at a work computer, and that the agency was still reviewing other anomalies in Flock search records.