If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like when a town collectively decides not to snitch, look no further than Winona, Minnesota. Sometime between July 29 and August 1, someone (or several someones) went around the city with a saw and took down every single Flock Safety camera the police department had. Not one or two. All eight. Poles cut clean near the base, left lying in the weeds like felled trees, cameras gone without a trace.
Winona police only figured it out when an officer noticed the cameras hadn’t logged any activity in a full 24 hours, which, if you think about it, is a pretty quiet way to discover a coordinated heist. A drive around town confirmed it: eight poles down, eight cameras missing, zero suspects. Two more Flock cameras belonging to Buffalo County, mounted on the Mississippi River Bridge connecting Winona to Wisconsin, got the same treatment. That brings the grand total to ten cameras gone in one stretch.
For those unfamiliar, Flock Safety cameras are the automated license plate readers a lot of departments have leaned on lately to help solve everything from stolen vehicles to more serious crimes. They’re not cheap either. At roughly $3,000 per camera and pole, Winona is now staring down about a $24,000 hole in its budget, and that bill lands squarely on the department, not some insurance windfall.
What makes this story genuinely fun, in a small-town way, is the public reaction. Winona police put out the standard call for tips, and the comment section did what comment sections do best: absolutely nothing helpful, but with style. People joked the cameras must have torn themselves down, or that whoever did it was out fishing with them at the time. Classic small-town alibi energy. Nobody’s talking, and honestly, we don’t blame the internet for finding that funny.
This Isn’t Just a Winona Problem
Winona is far from alone here. Similar camera thefts and vandalism have popped up across Minnesota in recent months, including in Duluth, Plymouth, Faribault, Edina, and Anoka County.
A man in Faribault was even charged after allegedly stealing a camera and trying to smash it. This looks less like an isolated prank and more like a pattern playing out statewide.
The Privacy Debate Behind the Bolt Cutters
None of this is happening in a vacuum. Flock cameras have become a lightning rod in the privacy conversation, with civil liberties groups like the ACLU actively campaigning against their spread, arguing the tech amounts to mass surveillance with too little oversight on who can access the data.
Whether or not you agree, it’s clear some folks aren’t waiting around for city council votes to make their feelings known.