Flock's CEO Allegedly Lies to Police About Role in an Abortion Case

Key Takeaways

• A recording obtained by 404 Media captured Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley telling Ohio law enforcement and government officials that 404 Media's reporting on police using Flock cameras to track a woman who self-administered an abortion was "entirely false."
• Court records obtained by the EFF and shared with 404 Media directly contradict Langley's account — showing that Texas authorities discussed whether they could charge the woman with a crime on the same day they performed the Flock search.
• In the same call, Langley coached police on press strategy: "Let me handle The New York Times, you handle your local media. They want to hear from you — you know your reporters, they'll pick up a sob story."
• The call adds to a documented pattern of misleading statements from Flock leadership: the company was caught lying to an Oshkosh city council about whether its tool creates movement heat maps; a former government affairs manager says he was told Flock had no ICE access, which was false.

A recording obtained by 404 Media captured Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley telling Ohio law enforcement and government officials that 404 Media's 2025 investigation into police using Flock cameras to track a woman who self-administered an abortion was "entirely false." 

The call, recorded by Signal Akron journalist Doug Brown, who sat in with an Ohio lawmaker and shared the recording with 404 Media, reveals how Langley speaks to government officials when the conversation isn't intended to be public.

The problem with Langley's claim is that court records exist. An affidavit obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and shared with 404 Media shows that on the same day Texas authorities performed the Flock search, they discussed with the district attorney's office whether they could charge the woman with a crime. 

The affidavit records the conclusion: the state could not "statutorily charge her for taking the pill." That's a discussion about charging a woman with a crime for having an abortion, documented in court records, on the day of the surveillance search. Langley called the story reporting this "entirely false." It’s not.

Langley's counter-narrative in the call was that police were conducting a wellness check — that the woman's family was concerned for her safety. 

404 Media has reported repeatedly that police documents don’t mention family concern. The investigation was initiated at the behest of the woman's partner, who was later arrested on charges related to alleged abuse of the same woman. 

The man had seen her a day after the abortion and didn't contact police until weeks later. And crucially: the original Flock search was performed more than two weeks after the abortion, which Langley's own "worried about her safety" framing doesn't explain. 

A police document created retroactively after 404 Media's reporting — providing the wellness check justification — didn't exist until after the story was published.

The Press Strategy He Described in Private

The content of Langley's false claims matters. So does the frame around them. In the same call, Langley advised the officers on how to handle press coverage of Flock: "Let me handle The New York Times, you handle your local media. They want to hear from you — you know your reporters, they'll pick up a sob story."

He wasn't advising them to tell the truth. He was advising them to segment the press — route national scrutiny through the CEO, who can manage it; deploy local law enforcement to local outlets where relationships exist and "sob stories" can be placed. 

That's a PR strategy, not a transparency strategy. And it was being conducted in a conversation the participants presumably believed wasn't being recorded.

Why This Matters Beyond One Dishonest Call

We've covered Flock before, including the company's plan to turn 350,000 Uber and Lyft vehicles into mobile license plate readers, and the arrests of four former Savannah police employees for misusing Flock's surveillance network.

Each story added a layer to the same picture: a surveillance company whose network is expanding rapidly, whose misuse cases are documented and growing, and whose leadership appears to be actively managing public perception rather than transparently addressing the problems.

Langley's call with Ohio officials is the most concrete version of that management strategy on record. A CEO calling a documented, court-record-backed investigative story "entirely false" in a private meeting with government officials — the people deciding whether to give his company more contracts — is not a misstatement. 

It's a calculated attempt to neutralize credible reporting before it can affect procurement decisions.

The ACLU documented a case in which Flock's chief information security officer told a city council the company's tool didn't create heat maps of individual movements. The city council approved the contract. The next day, they learned this was false and revoked it immediately. 

A former Flock government affairs manager says he was told the company had no ICE access — and that he was lied to. ICE did have direct access to Flock's network through a pilot program.

Independent journalism's function in this ecosystem is exactly what Langley's call demonstrates in negative: 404 Media's original reporting, based on court records and police documents, created a public record of how Flock's network was used that Flock's own communications did not provide. 

Without that reporting, the Flock search in an abortion case would not be part of the public record. The CEO's private characterization of that reporting as "entirely false" doesn't change what the court records show. 

It just tells us what he says when he thinks no one's listening. That's worth knowing.