Written by Following Monday night’s contentious city council committee meeting, Major B.J. Gruber, the Operations Commander for the Marion Police Department, issued the attached statement in which he denied the allegation that the city’s Flock surveillance cameras were used to track protestors attending the “No Kings” rallies held in downtown Marion on June 14th and October 18th, 2025.
Major Gruber’s response is demonstrative of what’s wrong with these cameras.
There’s absolutely no independent oversight or public transparency; any misuse of these cameras would need to be identified and reported internally by senior members of the Marion Police Department.
And let’s be real, how likely is that to occur?
It’s like placing a fox in charge of monitoring a hen house, not to slander my fellow foxes or our boys and girls in blue.
Major Gruber’s response also begs the question: Did anyone from the Marion Police Department access the data from the Flock cameras located in the downtown area during the morning and afternoon of June 14th and October 18th?
Searching for the keyword “King” implies that the Flock camera’s system had that search term programmed into it.
And why would it? It was a completely legal and peaceful protest.
It would be like searching your computer for an unnamed Word document.
That’s why I do not believe that using such a search term was appropriate.
The real question, as I’ve stated, is whether anyone from the MPD did a search of the cameras in downtown Marion, from Main Street to Center Street, during the protest.
It stands to reason that if a member of law enforcement wanted to document protest attendees, he would, for example, request to see a list of license plates that drove through downtown Marion within a two block radius of the intersection of Main Street and Center Street between the hours of 10 am and 2 pm on those days.
There are multiple Flock cameras in that section of the city, so there are several cameras that could be accessed and would contain this footage.
Let me be clear: I’m not saying that this happened or that the MPD did anything wrong.
What I’m saying is that there’s no independent oversight with these cameras and we don’t know if they’re being abused by law enforcement or the Flock Safety Company itself.
I’m also questioning the audit parameters for the search of the system that was conducted by Major Gruber.
Lastly, it must also be pointed out that Flock allegedly retains this surveillance data for a period of 30 days—unless it is downloaded by the MPD.
Once the MPD has the data, as I understand, they can house it on local servers for an indefinite period of time.
It’s at their discretion, so it can just as easily be deleted by MPD after it’s downloaded.
Whatever is being done with this information would only be known to the MPD and God himself.
Who is conducting the audits for this? Who is responsible for the oversight?
The Marion Police Department.
‘Nuff said.