COWETA COUNTY, Ga. — A Coweta County man is suing the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office, deputies, and Flock after he says deputies used Flock cameras to search for his vehicle in retaliation for another lawsuit he filed against the department.
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Channel 2’s Michael Doudna reports that the origins of the case trace back to Feb. 6, 2023, when Coweta County sheriff’s deputies stopped and arrested Tyler Murkerson at a Coweta Gas station. Body camera video shows deputies putting Murkerson on the ground and tasing him. The charges from that stop were dropped, and Murkerson filed a lawsuit against the arresting deputies.
Murkerson told Channel 2 Action news that after the initial encounter, he repeatedly felt as though law enforcement officers were watching him.
“I felt like they were following me or watching me,” Murkerson said. “There were many, many, many, times that I told my therapist that I was just waiting for something bad to happen.”
Murkerson tried to put his mind at ease by searching his plate on “HaveIBeenFlocked.com,” a website that aggregates Flock audit information obtained through public records requests.
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“I typed my tag number in, and there were five searches,” Murkerson said.
The complaint says the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office conducted all five searches while his earlier lawsuit was pending. HaveIBeenFlocked only had details for two of the five searches.
The stated reasons recorded for those two were “info” and “37,” according to the complaint.
“My reaction was that he was being retaliated for exercising his constitutional rights,” Chris Hall, Murkerson’s attorney, said.
Murkerson is now suing the department again over the surveillance.
“Collecting information is one thing, but then abusing the access to that information is what everybody’s concerned about,” Hall said.
Murkerson said they are not trying to get rid of Flock but want more guardrails on when police can search.
Murkerson said he wants stronger consequences for anyone found to have misused the technology.
“I think the penalties for doing it should be steep enough that it deters people from doing it again,” he said.
The Coweta County Sheriff’s Office told Channel 2 it could not comment because of the pending litigation.
Flock did not respond to a request for comment.
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