Overview
The Atlanta Police Department (APD) is the municipal police force serving the City of Atlanta, Georgia. Operates a network of Flock Safety license plate reader cameras connected to the broader Flock Safety Surveillance Network (~4,500 agencies). Documented in Atlanta PD used Flock cameras to track migrants (Nov 2025, Atlanta Community Press Collective) as having conducted immigration-related searches in March 2025 despite the City of Atlanta’s formal “Welcoming City” pro-immigrant policies — and as denying any 2025 immigration enforcement assistance in the same response that provided the contradicting audit data.
Key Facts
- 15 immigration-related searches (“locate alien,” “ERO assist”) conducted via APD credentials March 20-24, 2025
- APD Investigator David Stribling ran 12 “locate alien” searches; APD claims he was on an FBI task force on transnational fraud (since retired)
- Keya Chavies (LinkedIn: ATF Intelligence Specialist) ran 3 “ERO assist” searches via APD credentials despite not being an APD employee
- APD spokesperson denied any 2025 immigration enforcement assistance — directly contradicted by the audit they provided
- Network usage: APD ran 323,292 searches in 2025; APD’s cameras were hit by 10.6M searches from 4,500 outside agencies
- External use of APD network: 3,254 searches by US Border Patrol; 3,383 with immigration keywords from external agencies
- Atlanta’s “Welcoming City” policy (2013) and SAFE Cities Network membership (2017) committed the city to migrant protection — APD practice diverges sharply
- Mayor Bottoms (2018) ended the city’s ICE detention contract; 2025: city approved $4M migrant case management funding and accepted $156K migrant deportation defense grant — making APD’s immigration cooperation politically anomalous
Newsletter Relevance
APD is the textbook case of how local police practice can diverge from formal city policy when surveillance vendors and federal task-force memberships create back channels. The audit data itself is the receipt — APD’s own records contradict their public statement, and the open-records process is what made the contradiction visible. Strong material for any piece on sanctuary-city policy effectiveness, Flock’s network architecture, or accountability journalism via open records.
Connections
- Flock Safety — surveillance vendor; central infrastructure
- Atlanta Community Press Collective — investigative outlet that obtained the audit
- ICE / Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) — search-keyword origin
- US Customs and Border Protection — major external user of APD network
- Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives — Chavies’s actual employer
- Federal Bureau of Investigation — Stribling’s task-force assignment
- Sandy Springs Police Department — also documented running ERO queries in metro Atlanta
- Keisha Lance Bottoms — former Atlanta mayor; ended ICE contract 2018
Source Appearances
- Atlanta PD used Flock cameras to track migrants — primary documented case
Open Questions
- What internal APD review (if any) was triggered by the audit publication?
- How federal task-force memberships (FBI in Stribling’s case) create cross-jurisdictional surveillance authority that bypasses local political accountability — broader pattern question worth a piece.
- The Sandy Springs and Pierce County (GA) parallel cases — how widespread is the pattern across metro Atlanta and Georgia?
- City Council response — has Atlanta City Council moved to constrain APD’s Flock usage following this story?