Three More Little Rock Officers Pulled Off Duty Over Flock Searches as City Board Weighs Ending Camera Contract

LITTLE ROCK — Three more Little Rock police officers have been relieved of duty over searches in the department’s Flock Safety license plate reader system, Mayor Frank Scott Jr. said Tuesday, less than a week after records showed a fourth officer had been fired in July for running his girlfriend’s plate 28 times.

The three officers, who have not been named, were flagged in the department’s third-quarter audit of the system and are off the street with pay while an administrative investigation runs, the mayor said in a statement. A city spokesperson told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette the audit was completed Oct. 5.

“The people of Little Rock expect their police officers to uphold the law, protect our community, and use the tools entrusted to them responsibly. As Mayor, I expect nothing less,” Scott said. “We’ll follow our disciplinary process, up to and including termination if necessary.”

The announcement came the same morning the state’s police licensing commission voted to move ahead with the department’s request to decertify former Officer Kyle Dishman, the first officer caught in the audits, and hours before city directors began talking openly about pulling the plug on the cameras altogether.

Two audits, four officers

Arkansas Breaking News reported Friday that Dishman, 27, searched a Texas plate belonging to the mother of his child 28 times between May 16 and May 26, entering reasons such as animal cruelty, assault, drugs and suspicious vehicle. The department’s July 3 quarterly audit caught the searches. He was fired July 23, after a judge ordered him involuntarily committed, and the department asked the state to revoke his certification the next day.

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In a statement Tuesday, the Little Rock Police Department said that first audit found searches that were “unauthorized and personal in nature,” and that the next quarterly audit “identified additional officers conducting suspicious searches.” Those officers were relieved of duty pending administrative investigations, the department said, adding that they “are entitled to due process before any findings of wrongdoing are made.”

The department said the suspicious activity “was not targeted based on gender, race, or creed.” It did not say what the three officers searched for, how many times, or whether the searches involved the same person.

“Personal surveillance and other non work related use of the system are strictly prohibited,” the statement said. “LRPD recognizes that misuse of technology compromises public trust.”

The department said it put “advanced auditing software” in place in the second quarter of this year that automatically flags unusual search activity for supervisors to review. Scott said acting Chief Michael Miller is also moving the department from quarterly to monthly audits.

“This tighter review cycle will help us identify and address any issues much sooner,” Scott said.

Every officer in the department has access to the plate reader system, a city spokesperson told the Democrat-Gazette. The newspaper reported that the department rewrote its license plate reader policy July 8, five days after the audit that caught Dishman. The revision requires officers to name any custom “hot list” of plates with their full name and rank, limits each officer to one list without a supervisor’s written approval, orders a monthly audit of the lists by a Real Time Crime Center sergeant, and requires the chief’s written approval before the system can be used in an administrative investigation.

State panel moves on Dishman

The Arkansas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training voted Tuesday morning to take up the department’s decertification request against Dishman, the Democrat-Gazette reported. The vote sends the case toward a hearing at a later meeting. Dishman can contest the revocation there or let it go through without a fight. The commission’s own summary of the case, which Arkansas Breaking News reported last week, said Dishman searched his girlfriend’s plate 28 times and was relieved of duty June 4.

Dishman was one of 25 decertification recommendations on the commission’s two-day October agenda. The department said Tuesday its internal investigation into Dishman is still pending.

“We need to stop the use of them”

The cameras were not on the agenda when the Little Rock Board of Directors met Tuesday to set next week’s meeting, but the suspensions pushed them into the conversation anyway, THV11 reported.

“I think that we can take a look at the reports, the reviews, come up with a plan to audit better. But until we come up with that, I think we need to stop the use of them,” Vice Mayor B.J. Wyrick said.

City Director Antwan Phillips said an ordinance could come “in a couple weeks, and also with maybe an amendment about the non-renewal of our contract with Flock.” The station reported an ordinance to end the contract is expected in early November.

The board extended the city’s Flock contract for two years in October 2025 at a cost of $690,000, the Arkansas Times reported in January, when it mapped the department’s 116 cameras from a list released under the Freedom of Information Act. In December the board rejected an ordinance that would have required more transparency about the department’s surveillance technology, after the police chief at the time spoke against it.

Police told the board the system has paid for itself. The department said the plate readers have helped recover 279 stolen vehicles worth about $3.7 million and contributed to more than 400 arrests over the past two years, including 110 arrests this year.

“This is a very valuable tool, and it’s not for the Little Rock police officers that this tool is on the block for,” a department representative told the board, according to THV11. “This tool is out there so we can help every citizen in our communities that we serve get closure.”

Little Rock would be the largest Arkansas city to walk away from the cameras. The Fayetteville City Council voted unanimously Oct. 6 to ban automatic license plate readers in that city. Five smaller cities, starting with Pea Ridge and ending with Greers Ferry, pulled their Flock cameras in a three-week span this summer, and Arkansas Breaking News reported in July that nearly 1,000 license plate readers had been reported on Arkansas roads.

The three suspended officers have not been identified, and the department has not said when the investigations will be finished. The Little Rock Board of Directors next meets Tuesday.