SAVANNAH – The Savannah Police Department has terminated four sworn officers and two civilian employees following an internal investigation into misuse of the department’s Flock Safety License Plate Reader (LPR) system. All six cases remain under independent criminal investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
The six employees were initially placed on administrative leave after a proactive review of system activity identified searches that appeared to have been conducted for purposes unrelated to legitimate law enforcement activity. SPD initiated an internal investigation on July 27 and referred all six cases to the GBI for independent criminal review.
SPD’s administrative investigation determined that the employees violated department policies governing the authorized use of law enforcement technology and departmental resources. As a result of those findings, all six employees have been terminated from employment with the Savannah Police Department.
The identified misuse involved four sworn officers and two civilian staff members and included searches involving personal acquaintances and family members. The investigation also identified an instance in which an officer provided access to the SPD Flock Safety system to personnel from an outside law enforcement agency.
The activity was identified through SPD’s auditing and oversight of the Flock Safety system, including use of the Flock Safety Audit Assist program, which was made available by Flock Safety in April. Following the identification of the concerning activity, SPD began reviewing system use, initiated administrative investigations and requested an independent criminal investigation by the GBI.
The Savannah Police Department has further strengthened its oversight procedures by implementing recurring weekly audits conducted by the Office of Professional Standards. These reviews are designed to ensure compliance with department policy and identify irregular or potentially unauthorized activity requiring additional review.
Every search conducted within the Flock Safety platform is electronically documented, including the user, date, time and stated reason for the search. SPD also maintains safeguards including mandatory user training, role-based access controls, electronic audit logs, supervisory oversight, compliance reviews and administrative investigations when potential misuse is identified.
While SPD’s administrative investigation involving the six employees has concluded with their termination, the independent criminal investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation remains ongoing. SPD will continue to fully cooperate with that investigation.
The names of the terminated employees and additional details related to the individual cases cannot be released at this time due to the applicable employee appeals process and the ongoing independent criminal investigation by the GBI. The City and SPD will release additional information when legally permissible and when doing so will not interfere with the integrity of the investigative or appeals processes.
