Air Force Engineer Accused of Cutting Down 13 Police Cameras Says They're Unconstitutional

The first camera was simply pointed the wrong way.

In early April 2025, Jerry Reina, leader of a local neighborhood watch
in the Harbor View area of Suffolk, Va., noticed that one of their
community's six Flock Safety cameras had been turned away from the road
it was installed to monitor, according to his testimony at a preliminary
hearing as reported by WAVY, a Virginia-based news outlet. 

A Suffolk police sergeant who helps oversee the city's camera program
soon found another aimed into a wooden line. By summer, entire poles
were down. Some cameras were thrown from the Hampton Roads Parkway onto
Interstate 664 below, where they shattered on the pavement, the sergeant
testified. 

The tampering continued for six months.

In October, Suffolk Police arrested Jeffrey Sovern, 41, an engineer and
mechanic in the U.S. Air Force, according to his defense attorney, Cole
Roberts. Sovern faces 13 felony counts of destruction of property, six
counts of petit larceny, and six counts of possession of burglary tools,
tied to 13 Flock cameras that were damaged across North Suffolk between
April and October 2025, court records show. He has pleaded not guilty. 

A local vandalism case would normally stay local. This one has become a
national boiling point in the ever-burgeoning fight over automated
license plate readers. 

Privacy advocates across the country have donated more than $15,000 to
Sovern's legal defense, and his case is unfolding in Hampton Roads—a
region that holds one of the largest concentrations of military
personnel in the country, as well as more than 600 such cameras. 

At the late June preliminary hearing, Fifth Judicial District Court
Judge Nicole Belote certified all charges to the circuit court, WAVY
reported, sending the case toward a possible grand jury indictment and
trial. Sovern also faces separate petit larceny charges in Chesapeake,
according to WAVY, and was free on bond as of December. 

What Are Flock Cameras, and Where Are They?
Flock Safety builds automated license plate readers, solar-powered
cameras that photograph every plate that passes and store the images in
a searchable database for 30 days, according to Flock Safety’s evidence
policy. The company's software can also log a vehicle's make and color,
along with identifying features such as bumper stickers. 

Its network now operates in more than 6,000 communities nationwide.
Hampton Roads has embraced the technology at scale. More than 600 Flock
cameras operate across the region, including 70 in Suffolk, according to
an exhibit filed in a federal lawsuit and reported by WAVY. Police
departments credit the readers with helping to solve crimes and deter
offenders. 

Critics argue the cameras amount to a warrantless tracking network that
logs the daily movements of ordinary drivers. That argument has already
reached a courtroom in neighboring Norfolk, where a federal judge ruled
in January that the city's network of 176 Flock cameras did not violate
the Fourth Amendment, finding the system does not track the whole of a
person's movements. 

The two residents who sued, backed by the Institute for Justice, are
appealing. 

Why He Says He Did It
Suffolk Police Det. Zach Hyman testified that during an interview,
Sovern called the cameras "unconstitutional and a violation of his and
others' Fourth Amendment rights," according to coverage of the June
preliminary hearing. 

Sovern has publicly and repeatedly made the same argument. On a GoFundMe
page raising money for his defense, he introduced himself as a man who
values privacy and wrote, "I appreciate everyone's right to privacy,
enshrined in the Fourth Amendment." 

In a late June update posted after the hearing, he thanked supporters
and encouraged them to petition their local governments to remove the
camera systems. 

He has stopped short of admitting the conduct. Sovern told Straight
Arrow News he does not admit to vandalizing the cameras, while
maintaining that license plate reader systems are unconstitutional and
accusing Flock of building "an unhealthy surveillance state." 

How Police Say They Caught Him
Sovern admitted to investigators that he damaged the cameras, telling
them he used vice grips to disassemble the two-piece poles and kept some
of the wiring, batteries, and solar panels, according to a criminal
complaint filed in Suffolk General District Court and first reported by
WAVY. 

Hyman would go on to testify that the break in the case came in July
2025, when a traffic-monitoring camera captured a gray pickup belonging
to Sovern near a Flock camera that had recently begun having abnormal
issues. 

Investigators obtained a warrant to place a GPS tracker on the truck. In
October, a search warrant executed at Sovern's home turned up camera
components, including six solar panels, according to the testimony.
Hyman said Sovern told him the panels were being used for camping. 

Each installation carries a real price tag. Suffolk Police Sgt. Paul
Helvestine testified that a single unit consists of an $800 camera, a
$500 pole, and a $350 solar panel. 

destroying surveillance cameras was identified by one. This pattern is
not unique to Suffolk. An analysis of police audit logs by Straight
Arrow News found that law enforcement agencies around the country have
repeatedly used Flock's own search tools to investigate vandalism
against Flock cameras. 

A National Fight Over License Plate Readers
Sovern's case has intensified a much larger ripple working its way
across the U.S. 

In Newport News, police reported in November 2025 that a pole holding
one of the department's Flock cameras had been destroyed with no suspect
identified, a spokesperson told WAVY. 

The Virginia Pilot reported that communities have begun pushing back
against the new tech, and some cities and towns have canceled their
Flock contracts entirely. 

The constitutional ground is gaining momentum. On June 29, the Supreme
Court ruled 6-3 in Chatrie v. United States that obtaining a person's
cellphone location data is a search under the Fourth Amendment,
rejecting the government's argument that the data loses protection
because a third-party company holds it. 

This ruling, on the other hand, does not mention license plate readers,
but the Norfolk camera appeal is headed to the Fourth Circuit, the very
same court the Supreme Court just directed to reconsider the limits of
location surveillance. 

Flock has defended its work publicly, stating, "Flock Safety takes
damage to our devices seriously," company spokesperson Paris Lewbel said
in a statement to WAVY, adding that the company appreciates law
enforcement partners who hold individuals accountable and stands behind
technology it says protects communities. 


Brian
Sounds to me like he is doing what he took an oath to do, and protect.

2026-07-08 03:10:42

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