A Florida man faces felony charges after allegedly vandalizing a decoy Flock camera. The decoy, part of a vandalism sting, was built by a police officer with a personal 3D printer to catch vandals in the act.
404 Media reports that Evan Meyer was arrested shortly after midnight on Thursday, August 20, 2026, after police say he used his father’s garden shears to knock a Flock Safety camera off a pole and smash it on the ground. The camera was fake. It was part of a decoy operation the Oviedo Police Department had set up in an area where several real Flock cameras had gone missing in July and August.
According to the arrest report, police explained the setup this way: “Several of our Flock Safety cameras were stolen between 7/23/2026 -8/3/2026 out of the Lockwood Blvd. corridor and we replaced them with clone style Flock cameras. These Flock ‘bait’ cameras were made to closely resemble that of real Flock cameras but did not cost the same amount nor collect any data within the device.”
The decoys went up the Sunday before the arrest, and officers monitored them overnight through Thursday. One officer built the working replica at home on a personally owned 3D printer and donated it to the department, according to a police statement to 404 Media.
Per the arrest report, “When asked how much he believes the camera costs to replace, he stated approximately $1,000-$5,000 proving that Meyer knew it was an expensive real piece of equipment and not a fake replica. The actual cost to replace our Flock camera is valued at $800.00 plus any installation fees. Meyer advised he has been hearing all the negative things online about the misuses of Flock cameras (specifically the CEO of Flock Safety) and decided to knock the one down which was closest to his house. Meyer grabbed his father’s pruning shears from the garage, walked down the street (south from his house) and was tall enough to cut the mount off and then smashed the camera on the ground.”
He now faces three felony charges: attempted larceny/grand theft, criminal mischief for property damage over $1,000, and property crimes against computer equipment supplies.
Breitbart News recently reported that one Florida sheriff has labeled concerns over Flock cameras as “ignorance” and “Misinformation:”
St. Johns County Sheriff Robert Hardwick spoke with The 904 Now on August 14 about the emergence of Flock cameras, which are said to act only as automatic license plate readers, in his jurisdiction that reportedly has roughly 180 in operation. Maps show some exits having four in one small area alone.
“Across the great state of Florida, here in St. Johns County, we’re not hearing the rhetoric that the rest of the country is actually preaching,” Hardwick said. “Matter of fact, we’re not really hearing the rhetoric across the great state of Florida because of our support and leadership, including Lieutenant Governor from … the capital in Tallahassee.”
Hardwick dismissed the concerns over mass surveillance as the “flavor of the day” that will eventually die down. He also tied concerns over Flock cameras and the want to remove them to efforts in Democrat-run cities that actively seek to defund the police.
Read more at 404 Media here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of AI, free speech, and online censorship.
Read the full article here