Lufkin, Texas officer misused Flock license-plate database to track 11 people over a year, indicted on 100 felony counts

On August 20, 2026, Texas Rangers arrested Lufkin, Texas police officer Zachary Anthony Klein, an 11-year member of the Lufkin Police Department, on charges of abuse of official capacity and tampering with a government record following an internal audit and an outside investigation into his use of the department's Flock automated license-plate-reader system. According to the Lufkin Police Department's own statement, the audit began after the department received a public information request on August 14, 2026 about Klein's Flock searches; internal affairs found the searches inconsistent with any criminal investigation and referred the matter to the Texas Rangers on August 18. Police Chief Travis Brazil requested the outside investigation and, "while the investigations are ongoing," suspended the department's use of Flock cameras entirely. A second, unnamed officer was placed on administrative leave pending further investigation into his own use of the technology.

Klein was indicted the following day, August 21, 2026, by an Angelina County grand jury on 100 counts of misuse of official information, each a third-degree felony, in the 159th Judicial District Court. According to the Texas Rangers' arrest affidavit, Klein's suspected unauthorized searches ran from June 2024 to December 2025 and tracked the vehicles of 11 people for nongovernmental purposes -- most of them connected to one of Klein's ex-girlfriends as family members, past romantic interests, or people she was involved with. The ex-girlfriend's own license plate had been searched more than 10,000 times. The affidavit states Klein's assigned duties consisted primarily of crash investigations, that none of the searched names were tied to any past or current LPD investigation, that the searches were run from a personal mobile phone rather than a department-issued one, and that they occurred at nearly all hours despite Klein working the day shift -- details investigators said were inconsistent with any legitimate law-enforcement purpose.

The case illustrates a pattern the archive has recorded repeatedly: an ALPR network's only check against personal misuse is a log reviewed after the fact, not a control that stops the search when it happens. Klein's queries went undetected for well over a year until an unrelated public-records request prompted the department to look back through its own logs.