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Two of six Savannah Police Department employees who misused Flock cameras remain unnamed after four were charged

The Savannah Police Department terminated four sworn officers and two civilian employees on or about August 7, 2026, after an internal investigation found they used the department's Flock Safety license-plate-reader system to run searches on personal acquaintances and family members unrelated to law enforcement purposes. One of the six also gave an outside law-enforcement agency unauthorized access to the system. SPD opened the investigation July 27, 2026 and referred all six cases to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation; the GBI has since arrested and charged four of the six -- Marquis Dillard, Donald Phillips, Matthew Rich, and Calandic Thomas, recorded as their own entries. The remaining sworn officer and civilian employee have not been named or charged as of this recording.

Part of: Police Using License-Plate Camera Networks to Stalk

Jurisdiction
Georgia
Location
Savannah, Georgia

Abuses documented

Actors

  • Savannah Police Department (two of six employees who misused Flock system for personal searches, not yet individually identified)

On August 7, 2026, the Savannah Police Department announced it had terminated four sworn officers and two civilian employees following an internal investigation into misuse of the department's Flock Safety license-plate-reader system, with all six cases also referred to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for independent criminal review.

The misuse was identified through SPD's audit of Flock Safety activity, including the vendor's Audit Assist tool, made available in April 2026. SPD's audit-assist tool flagged 127 of the department's roughly 39,000 Flock searches in 2026; officers manually reviewed each flagged alert and determined 34 were unjustified, implicating six staff members. The administrative investigation, opened July 27, 2026, found the employees ran searches on personal acquaintances and family members for reasons unrelated to legitimate law enforcement activity, and that one employee gave someone from an outside law-enforcement agency unauthorized access to SPD's Flock system; no source identifies which of the six did this.

Following the terminations, SPD implemented recurring weekly audits by its Office of Professional Standards. Savannah Mayor Van Johnson said the city self-reported the misconduct rather than it surfacing through outside discovery, and that the names of the six had not been released because of the pending GBI criminal investigation and an employee appeals process.

The episode is one of several documented cases in which officers with authorized access to license-plate-reader networks used them to track people for personal reasons rather than legitimate investigations, a pattern the archive tracks across departments and vendors.

Updates

2026-08-21 — GBI arrested and charged four of the six named employees [5]

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested and charged four of the six employees originally covered by this entry -- Marquis Dillard, Donald Phillips, Matthew Rich, and Calandic Thomas -- each individually, following its independent criminal review. Each is now recorded as its own entry, one per actor. The remaining sworn officer and civilian employee referenced in this entry's original reporting have not been named or charged as of this recording.

Why we recorded this

Automated license-plate-reader networks like Flock Safety operate on the premise that officers will search them only for legitimate law-enforcement purposes, with logged searches as the primary safeguard against misuse. A Savannah Police Department audit found that six employees ran searches on personal acquaintances and family members unrelated to any case, and that one employee gave an outside law-enforcement agency unauthorized access to the system. This archive records when officers use surveillance tools issued for public safety to conduct unauthorized personal surveillance, because the log that caught this misuse is a record made after the fact -- it does not stop a search before it happens. Four of the six have since been individually charged and are recorded as their own entries; this entry now covers only the two who remain unidentified.

Sources

  1. Savannah Police Department Terminates Six Employees Following Investigation into Misuse of Flock Safety System — Savannah Police Department primary accessed August 14, 2026
  2. Savannah Police Department fires 6 employees over Flock Safety System misuse — WTOC primary accessed August 14, 2026
  3. Savannah mayor addresses firing of 6 officers over Flock Safety System misuse — WTOC secondary accessed August 14, 2026
  4. Savannah mayor, police chief feel 'betrayed' after 6 employees placed on leave for Flock camera misuse — WTOC secondary accessed August 14, 2026
  5. 'There is no excuse for breaking that trust': GBI arrests 4 former Savannah PD employees in Flock misuse case — WTOC primary accessed September 4, 2026

See also