Texas Police Accountability

Pasadena Texas - Officer Michael Palitz Using Flock Cameras to stalk a Female Police Officer

PASADENA, Texas – A Pasadena police sergeant has resigned from the department while he remained under an active internal investigation, according to the Pasadena Police Department.

The resignation comes as a Pasadena city council member exclusively told KPRC 2 that the sergeant was being investigated for allegedly misusing the department’s Flock Safety license plate reader camera system to track a fellow officer.

For months, KPRC 2 has been looking into allegations surrounding Sgt. Michael Palitz after receiving information about an internal investigation. As part of that reporting, KPRC 2 requested Palitz’s personnel records, receiving a heavily redacted file, and continued pressing city officials for answers.

Council member details allegations

Pasadena City Council Member Emmanuel Guerrero told KPRC 2 he believes the investigation centered on allegations that Palitz improperly accessed the city’s Flock camera system to monitor another officer.

“Based on what we gathered, [he] was using our camera system, our Flock system, to track and stalk a female officer,” Guerrero said.

When asked to clarify whether he was alleging Palitz was under investigation for misusing the Flock camera system and stalking a fellow officer, Guerrero responded, “Correct.”

Pasadena Texas. Pasadena police department. Pasadena police Texas.

Guerrero said his understanding is that the system itself flagged repeated use of the account.

“To my understanding, it was an overwhelming use that the system itself flagged and notified that the account associated to the officer,” Guerrero said.

https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2026/07/10/pasadena-police-sergeant-resigns-while-under-internal-investigation-council-member-cites-alleged-misuse-of-flock-camer/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=snd&utm_content=kprc2&fbclid=IwY2xjawTA0-hleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFiczNQWjFmbk1mTTJkcTBuc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHm-qNDNK9_0X8mnyJXtjCUfFlkOY-5vmpglPdjfF7Z73I7Edr78jkM8rpX7d_aem_E37e71KlZgRFG6ezZGhnxw

Pasadena police sergeant resigns while under internal investigation; council member cites alleged misuse of Flock camera The resignation comes as a Pasadena city council member exclusively told KPRC 2 that the sergeant was being investigated for allegedly misusing the department’s Flock Safety license plate reader camera system to track a fellow officer.

Your Garbage Truck Is About to Start Spying on You and Your Family

Cape Coral, Florida is looking at a proposal to strap AI-powered cameras onto its garbage trucks. As the trucks roll their normal routes, the cameras would scan yards and house fronts for code violations: overgrown grass, illegal dumping, peeling paint, the usual blight checklist. City leaders are framing it as a staffing fix. Code enforcement departments are chronically understaffed, and a camera riding along on a truck that's already driving the route costs less than a human inspector driving a second route just to look for the same things.

That's the announcement. It isn't the story.

The real story is what happens to data once it exists, and car owners have already lived through the exact version of it. General Motors ran a strikingly similar play on its own customers through OnStar, got caught, and is currently serving a five-year federal ban because of it. Cape Coral hasn't gotten anywhere near that far yet. But the pattern is close enough that anyone who owns a car should recognize it instantly.

The Pitch Is Efficiency. The Product Is Data.

The vendor behind much of this trend is a company called City Detect, which brands its system around what it calls The Good AI. Its pitch to cities is almost identical to Cape Coral's plan: mount cameras on vehicles the city already owns and drives (garbage trucks, code enforcement SUVs, whatever is already burning gas on a route) and let computer vision flag problems for a human to verify later. No new patrol cars, no new payroll, and fewer emissions than adding a dedicated inspection vehicle. It's a genuinely clever piece of packaging.

Stockton, California has already run the program long enough to generate real numbers, and they are worth sitting with. According to City Detect's own case study, the system captured 199,159 images across the city, analyzed 39,740 parcels, and flagged 13,852 unique issues. That isn't a pilot. That's a rolling, continuous photographic survey of tens of thousands of private properties, generated as a byproduct of a truck doing its actual job. Cathedral City, California has used the same system to send out 500 courtesy notices after analyzing more than 12,000 parcels.

Dallas has approved more than $850,000 for a nearly identical system, pending final city council sign-off. Cape Coral is still just weighing the idea. None of this is hidden; these are public proposals with public price tags attached. What's discussed far less is what these systems are being layered on top of.

The Cameras Were Already Watching Your Car

Trash-truck cameras aren't arriving into a surveillance vacuum. Flock Safety already operates somewhere between 80,000 and 90,000 AI-enabled cameras across American communities, mostly mounted on fixed poles rather than moving trucks. Flock's systems don't just read plates. They build what the company calls a vehicle fingerprint (make, body style, decals, roof racks, bumper damage, and dozens of other visual markers) and run what it calls convoy analysis to flag vehicles that keep turning up near each other. The ACLU has spent the past year documenting how that analysis gets used to flag ordinary drivers as suspected participants in organized crime, based on nothing more than repeated proximity to another car.

Your Garbage Truck Is About to Start Spying on You. Your Car Already Did, and Got Fined for It. Cape Coral, Florida is looking at a proposal to strap AI-powered cameras onto its garbage trucks. As the trucks roll their normal routes, the cameras would scan yards and house fronts for code violati...