A 44-year-old Rio Rancho man filmed himself dismantling Flock Safety license plate reader cameras across Bernalillo County, New Mexico, loaded ten of them into his pickup truck, and then, for reasons only he can explain, drove past the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office three times before deputies stopped him at gunpoint and slapped on the cuffs.
Jevon Martinez now faces larceny and interference-with-communications charges in the Bernalillo County case. He was already facing nine felony counts in neighboring Sandoval County for an earlier round of the same activity. A grand jury has since indicted him on those charges. Whatever point Martinez wanted to make about government surveillance, he made a far louder one about the cost of freelance activism.
The September 2 episode, first detailed by Fox News, unfolded in real time on social media. Martinez livestreamed himself pulling camera equipment off poles and stacking it in his truck bed, narrating the whole operation for his audience like a man hosting a yard-sale haul.
Martinez did not try to hide. He broadcast his intentions, his method, and his location. In one clip, he addressed the sheriff’s deputies directly:
“Since BCSO is busy, I know BCSO is busy, everyone who works for BCSO, I know you guys are busy, so I went ahead and helped you out.”
In another, he sounded almost giddy about the haul: “We got a bunch of these bad boys.” He turned the removals into a dare: “Let’s see how much I can get in one day. That’s gonna be the challenge for everyone out there.”
Martinez described the cameras as “tyranny trees.” In a social media post, he claimed BCSO no longer subscribed to Flock’s service and said he was simply returning equipment that had been “left unattended.” He insisted he was neither destroying nor stealing anything.
Authorities saw it differently. Of the ten camera systems Martinez allegedly removed, only two belonged to BCSO. The other eight were managed by neighborhood associations, private entities that had contracted with Flock Safety on their own. The combined value of the equipment: $16,500.
The criminal complaint describes Martinez driving past BCSO headquarters three times with the camera gear still sitting in his truck bed. Deputies finally stopped him outside the building, surrounded his vehicle with weapons drawn, and placed him in handcuffs.
Martinez appeared virtually in Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court on September 4. Prosecutors did not file a pretrial detention motion, and Judge Claire McDaniel did not order him held on the Bernalillo County charges. But Martinez stayed behind bars anyway, a violation of his release conditions in the separate Sandoval County case kept him in custody.
That earlier case involved Rio Rancho police, who had arrested Martinez months before for allegedly removing and damaging three license plate reader systems. He faces nine felony charges in that jurisdiction. The pattern is hard to miss: Martinez appears to have treated camera removal as a personal crusade, escalating from three systems to ten and broadcasting the second round to the world.
There is a discrepancy in the charging documents worth noting. One account from the criminal complaint describes the charge as “attempted larceny over $2,500,” while BCSO’s own reporting lists it as “larceny over $2,500.” Which charge is operative remains unclear from available court records.
Martinez’s timing added an awkward wrinkle. Just days before the September 2 incident, Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen had moved to end BCSO’s three contracts with Flock Safety. Allen cited concerns about privacy, data sharing, and what he described as lost confidence in the company’s safeguards. He raised specific worries about other law enforcement agencies gaining access to New Mexico plate data through Flock’s network.
BCSO’s relationship with Flock was not small. The three contracts covered five automatic license plate reader cameras, sixteen speed cameras connected to the Flock network, and a gunshot detection system. Allen, however, did not reject the underlying technology. He said he still supports automated license plate readers and plans to evaluate other vendors.
That distinction matters. Allen’s position was that the vendor had lost his trust, not that the tool was illegitimate. Martinez’s position, by contrast, was blunter: “Not in my city, not in my state.” He appeared to reject the entire concept of automated vehicle surveillance, not just one company’s version of it.
The gap between those two positions is the gap between lawful governance and vigilante property destruction. A sheriff ending a contract through proper channels is accountability in action. A man ripping cameras off poles and daring others to follow his lead is something else entirely, regardless of whether the underlying privacy concerns have merit.
Flock Safety founder and CEO Garrett Langley appeared on Fox News’s Saturday in America with host Kayleigh McEnany to defend the technology. Langley claimed Flock’s systems have helped solve over one million crimes and locate 10,000 missing persons. The company also maintains that its license plate reader cameras do not collect the driver’s identity, only the plate number.
Critics, including Senator Bernie Sanders, have raised mass surveillance and privacy concerns about the rapid spread of Flock cameras. The debate is not confined to New Mexico. Fox News tech journalist Kurt Knutsson found Flock license plate readers operating in some Home Depot and Lowe’s parking lots in Connecticut, a detail that underscores how far the technology has spread beyond law enforcement into private commercial spaces.
A separate incident in Colorado illustrated the real-world friction the cameras can create. A woman there faced a porch theft accusation after Flock cameras linked her truck to the area. Cases like that one, and dramatic confrontations captured in real time across the country, have fueled public anxiety about the reach of automated surveillance and the consequences of algorithmic policing.
The debate over AI-powered surveillance cameras is legitimate. Reasonable people can disagree about where the line falls between public safety and mass data collection. Sheriffs, city councils, and state legislatures are the proper venues for drawing that line, and in Bernalillo County, the sheriff was already doing exactly that.
Martinez chose a different path. He filmed himself committing what prosecutors say are felonies, challenged others to do the same, and then, in a move that defies any strategic logic, paraded the evidence past the sheriff’s headquarters until deputies had no choice but to act. He now faces charges in two counties and a grand jury indictment.
The legal system has a way of catching up with people who believe their cause exempts them from the law. Martinez may have genuine objections to surveillance technology. Millions of Americans share some version of those objections. But the Bill of Rights protects citizens from government overreach through courts, legislatures, and elections, not through one man’s pickup truck and a livestream.
Eight of the ten camera systems Martinez allegedly removed did not even belong to the government. They belonged to neighborhood associations, private groups of residents who chose to install them. Martinez did not just defy the sheriff’s office. He took property from his own neighbors.
The broader questions about Flock Safety, data sharing, and the constitutional limits of government power deserve serious public debate. That debate is happening. Sheriff Allen’s contract cancellation proves it. Legislators and courts will weigh in. The process works, slowly, imperfectly, but lawfully.
What does not work is a man with a grudge and a GoPro deciding he is the law. Martinez called the cameras “tyranny trees.” But a citizen who appoints himself judge, jury, and demolition crew is not fighting tyranny. He is practicing it.
When you livestream yourself committing crimes and dare the public to join in, you are not a freedom fighter. You are a cautionary tale.
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