Pinal County

In August 2026 the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office canceled its contract with Flock Safety. The county’s own press release says that at the Board of Supervisors meeting, Sheriff Ross Teeple “announced the cancellation of the Sheriff’s Office contract with Flock Safety, citing 4th amendment concerns with the company’s Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) Cameras.”

On the Board’s agenda the item read only as a “Presentation and discussion regarding Flock Safety Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) Cameras”. The press release is what says it was a cancellation.

Two steps to switch off a camera network

Ending the program took two acts. The Sheriff canceled the service contract. The Board then had to end the permission that lets the cameras stand on county land. The Board’s agenda for a special session on 12 August 2026 carried that item: “Discussion/approval/disapproval to issue notice of termination to Flock Group Inc. of the Extension of the Right of Way License Agreement for the Installation of Video Monitoring System.” The county does not publish minutes for that meeting, and its agendas do not record outcomes, so the vote is not in the record we can read.

A plate reader network on public roads rests on a license to use the right of way, and that license is a Board decision. It is the part of the arrangement residents can most easily ask about.

A federal border grant pays for a plate reader subscription

Separately, the Board’s 1 July 2026 consent agenda carried an amendment to an Operation Stonegarden award, a federal border security grant that reaches counties through the Arizona Department of Homeland Security, extending it to July 2027. The agenda says what the money covers: “the annual License Plate Reader (LPR) technology subscription and camera fees, aircraft parts and maintenance, aviation fuel, and a motor overhaul for its Huey helicopter”.

A camera bought once is a decision a county makes once. A subscription renews, and a renewing grant is what keeps it paid for. Neither document says whether this subscription is the Flock contract the Sheriff canceled, and we do not assume it is.

In Cochise County the same program paid for air cards for mobile plate reader trailers. In Pima County a $595,600 Stonegarden equipment request came before the Board in 2020, and its agenda did not say what the money would buy.

Border money in a county between two cities

In January 2026 the consent agenda also carried $657,137.42 from the state’s Local Border Support Program, for the Sheriff’s Anti-Smuggling Unit and Narcotics Task Force. Consent items pass in a single vote unless someone pulls them; the agenda does not record what happened to either. Pinal County lies between Phoenix and Tucson and does not touch Mexico. Nine Arizona counties in this project’s reading hold agreements under that program, and seven of them, Pinal included, are not on the Mexican border.

Nothing about that is unlawful. The program’s terms cover smuggling and trafficking, which do not stop at a county line.

What the map shows, and what the record covers

Volunteers have mapped 406 devices in this county, and 390 of them carry Flock Safety as the manufacturer. The map does not say how many are the Sheriff’s, so it does not say how many go dark with the cancellation.

Volunteers have also mapped eight gunshot detectors here, seven of them tagged Flock Safety and one carrying the ShotSpotter brand. None records an operator, and nothing in the Board’s record mentions gunshot detection at all.

The Board’s agenda portal publishes July 2025 onward and nothing earlier. Whatever the Board approved before then, including how the Flock network began, is not online, and is a records request. That limit applies to the gunshot detectors too: a county record that starts in July 2025 cannot say when something bought earlier was approved.

Two things worth naming precisely

The Maricopa Police Department appears in this county’s surveillance record. That is the police department of the city of Maricopa, which is in Pinal County, and not Maricopa County to the north. The Electronic Frontier Foundation credits it with a camera registry and drones.

Two mapped points in this county carry an operator note saying the Drug Enforcement Administration runs them and that Customs and Border Protection also has access to the imagery. That is a volunteer’s note on a community map. Nothing in the Board’s record confirms it.

Where this leaves a resident

You do not need permission to speak here. The agendas say that “Those wishing to address the Board of Supervisors need not request permission in advance”. Meetings are at 9:30 on Wednesday mornings in Florence, and recent agendas warn that construction is affecting the parking.