The Reason Box
Someone with a Savannah Police login types a plate into Flock Safety's license plate reader system. Then they type a reason. Assistant Chief Robert Gavin walked the city through what that click keeps: the user, the date, the time, the device used to log in, and the stated reason. He also named what it does not keep. It does not track where that user is sitting when they hit search.
A password opens the plate file, with individual credentials and two-factor authentication sitting on the account, and the reason field stores a sentence. For the people whose plates live in that file, the lookup is already done before anyone reads the log.
Savannah Police handed that login to approximately 300 employees. Each person got individual credentials. The department lists role-based access and mandatory training. Every query still asks for a reason. City leaders talk about those controls like they close the door. Here's the thing: three hundred people with a password to the same plate file is a staffing decision. The reason box does not stop a personal search; it files it.
What Those Logins Were Used For
Between January and late July, Savannah personnel ran 39,590 searches in the Flock system. A monthly internal audit flagged 127 of them as irregular. Investigators then determined that 34 of those searches could not be justified as law enforcement work. The department's own account of the misuse is blunt. Employees ran searches on personal acquaintances and family members. One officer provided access to Savannah's system to personnel from an outside law enforcement agency. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation later confirmed that outside agency is under the same investigation. It would not name it.
That outside login is the same machine. One credential, handed across a department line, opened Savannah's plate file for people the city did not roster.
SPD opened an internal investigation on July 27. On July 29 it referred all six cases to the GBI. The six, four sworn officers and two civilian employees, went on paid administrative leave first. On August 7 the department terminated all of them. Police Chief Lenny Gunther's shop called it a violation of policies governing the authorized use of law enforcement technology and departmental resources. Names stayed sealed then because of the employee appeals process and the open criminal file. Mayor Van Johnson told the city the cases had gone to the state. "These tools exist to keep our community safe, not for personal or unauthorized use," he said.
You can drive through Savannah on a lawful trip and never know a search happened. I would not know either, and the acquaintances the department now says were queried did not get a notice. The reason box files a personal search after it already returned.
Two weeks after the firings, the GBI arrested four of the six. Marquis Dillard, 48, of Savannah, faces two counts of misuse of a license plate reader system and one count of violation of oath of office. Donald Phillips, 23, of Fleming, and Matthew Rich, 39, of Savannah, face the same mix of charges. Calandic Thomas, 34, of Pooler, a community service specialist, faces two counts of misuse of a license plate reader system. All four were booked into the Chatham County Jail. The City of Savannah said Dillard had ten years with the department, most recently as a homicide detective. Phillips had two and a half years. Rich had thirteen. Thomas had just under three. The other two fired employees have not been named. The GBI says the investigation is still open. When it is finished, the case file goes to the Eastern Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office.
The Log That Arrives Too Late
They found this with the vendor's own product. Flock Safety's Audit Assist program became available to the department in April. It watches for search patterns that fall outside an agency's typical usage. The tool uses ten items to generate a red flag, including high search volume and manual plate lookups. SPD used it, plus its own oversight, to mark searches that did not look like police work. Gunther said officers then manually went through every flagged alert. Searches that do not align with established patterns can be flagged for review.
The Office of Professional Standards moved from monthly audits to weekly ones. Leadership promised a public Flock Transparency Portal. Chief Gunther said he is working to add a formal policy governing Flock camera usage. City Manager Jay Melder's line was for the building: "Let this be a clear statement to everybody in our organization: improper misuse of any government tool that breaches public trust will be dealt with severely."
Gunther's other line is the one they always reach for after the passwords are already out. "Trust isn't proven when nothing goes wrong. Trust is built by how you respond when someone breaks the rules and fractures public trust and confidence." Mayor Johnson said he was disappointed and pissed off. He also said the city entrusted these people with advanced technology and, more than that, with the public's trust. While they were explaining the misuse, city leaders kept defending the system itself.
Weekly reviews utilize the same log that already stored the user, the timestamp, and the story they typed. A family member's plate does not get un-searched, and the person whose car was queried does not get told. The roster of people who still hold a login does not shrink because the Office of Professional Standards now meets more often. Gavin's system will still fail to note whether that login was used from a precinct desk or a phone in a parking lot.
Savannah fired six people, and the GBI took four of them to the Chatham County Jail. That is the chapter the department wants treated as the ending. The ecosystem that made the search possible is still the login. You cannot opt out of the plate file those passwords still open, and you do not get a letter when someone uses one.
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