Georgia officer misused Flock cameras to track ex and a colleague

Documents obtained through a Georgia public-records request let WIRED reconstruct one of the more detailed known cases of a police officer misusing Flock Safety's automatic license plate readers to track people he knew personally. Dustin Bozzo, until this month a patrolman with the Alpharetta Police Department in the Atlanta suburbs, searched Flock's camera network 56 times between March and May for the vehicle of a former romantic partner who was a fellow officer, a relationship that had already violated the city's ban on workplace dating. When Bozzo noticed her car was often parked near that of a second Alpharetta officer, he began running searches on that officer's vehicle too, 29 times over the same three months.

WIRED is able to detail the fallout through on-the-record comments from two named Alpharetta officials. Lieutenant Jason Hiott tells WIRED that Bozzo was placed on paid leave on July 20 and resigned on August 5; Hiott adds that an "ongoing criminal investigation" is now underway in the department's Criminal Investigations Division. Police Chief Trent Lindgren says the investigation should conclude soon and describes the department as holding itself to a "high standard," adding that it took "immediate action" once the misuse was identified. Neither Bozzo nor Flock responded to WIRED's requests for comment; after WIRED messaged him, Bozzo changed his Facebook profile picture and name. WIRED notes the case is not isolated: nationally, there have been at least 45 documented incidents of officers misusing Flock to track current or former romantic partners.

The internal report, written by Alpharetta Sergeant Jabbar Braithwaite, lays out how the relationship and the surveillance unfolded. Bozzo told Braithwaite that his fling with his former partner, who is now a civilian employee of the department, began in late 2025; she said most or all of their communication happened over Snapchat. Asked at first whether he had ever been "romantically involved" with her, Bozzo replied, "At work?" Braithwaite clarified that he meant at any time, on duty or off, and Bozzo then confirmed a sexual relationship, as did she. Both maintained it never happened while either was on duty, but colleagues reported that the pair "frequently spent personal time together while on duty" and were "not engaged in their assigned responsibilities." The department responded by separating the two, who had shared a squad and a patrol beat, and issuing them a written directive on "acceptable workplace interactions." The affair reportedly continued anyway: one sergeant told investigators he saw the pair meeting in a "dark, secluded park" at around 2:30 am, while Bozzo was on duty and his former partner was not. The two disagree on how long it lasted and how it ended: Bozzo says about a month and a mutual breakup, while she says several months and that she was the one who ended it. Both agree only that it ended on good terms.

Bozzo's Flock searches for her car began in early March, according to the report. Flock prompts officers to log a reason for every plate search, and per the audit logs Braithwaite cites, Bozzo almost always picked either "Wanted Person" or "Traffic Infraction," categories that had nothing to do with his real motive; asked why, he said it was "just a quick keystroke." He told investigators he was only checking that his former partner had gotten home safely, since she often drove around late at night. After learning she had been in a car accident and was borrowing her uncle's car, he began searching for that vehicle too, 18 times between April 5 and April 14.

It was while reviewing his own search results, Bozzo says, that he began noticing a particular car turning up near hers again and again. It belonged to an Alpharetta officer who had recently transferred in from a nearby department. Bozzo found the pattern "weird" and started searching for that officer's plate as well, 29 times in all. He denies the searches were driven by jealousy and points to an existing friendship as evidence: both men told investigators they had previously helped his former partner move house. She told Braithwaite she had no idea what prompted either set of searches, and both she and the second officer insisted they had always been just platonic friends; the second officer separately told investigators his own dealings with Bozzo had been friendly and respectful.

Bozzo told investigators he understood his actions were wrong, and Braithwaite's report found nothing to contradict Bozzo's claim that he had not acted out of "malice or an intent to harm." Braithwaite's conclusion held regardless: whatever Bozzo's actual motivation, using Flock the way he did was "inconsistent with Department policy and the authorized use of the system."

Key facts

Alpharetta, Georgia patrolman Dustin Bozzo searched Flock's automatic license-plate-reader network 56 times between March and May for the car of a former romantic partner, a fellow officer, and 29 times over the same period for a second officer's car after noticing the two vehicles were often parked near each other.
After learning his former partner had been in a car accident and was borrowing her uncle's car, Bozzo searched for that vehicle 18 times between April 5 and April 14; per the audit logs cited in the internal report, he almost always logged his reason for each Flock search as "Wanted Person" or "Traffic Infraction."
Bozzo was placed on paid leave on July 20 and resigned on August 5, following an internal investigation led by Alpharetta Sergeant Jabbar Braithwaite; Lieutenant Jason Hiott says a criminal investigation is now ongoing in the department's Criminal Investigations Division.
Bozzo's relationship with his former partner, which he says began in late 2025 and violated Alpharetta's ban on workplace dating, reportedly continued even after the department separated the two officers and issued them a written directive on acceptable workplace conduct.
WIRED counts at least 45 documented incidents nationwide of police officers misusing Flock to track current or former romantic partners, placing Bozzo's case within an already-documented pattern.

Why it matters

This is one of the more granular public accounts yet of a pattern WIRED describes as already widespread: police officers using Flock's automatic license plate readers on people in their own personal lives rather than for police work. What makes the Alpharetta case unusually well documented is the paper trail itself: audit logs showing exactly which plates Bozzo searched, how often, and what reason he logged each time, all obtained only because WIRED filed a public-records request rather than the department volunteering them. It also shows how far a small, casual misuse can grow: checking on an ex-partner's safety turned into 103 separate license-plate searches (56 for her car, 29 for a colleague's, 18 for her uncle's) across roughly three months, nearly all of them logged under generic reason codes that had nothing to do with why Bozzo was actually running them.

Who it affects

Directly, it affects the two other officers whose vehicles Bozzo searched: his former partner, who now works for the department as a civilian employee, and the second officer, who is still with the department and told investigators his own dealings with Bozzo were friendly and respectful. It affects the Alpharetta Police Department's own standing, since the internal report became public only because WIRED requested it, not because the department disclosed it on its own. And it affects the wider debate over Flock's use by police departments across the U.S.: WIRED counts at least 45 documented nationwide cases of officers misusing the system to track current or former romantic partners, so Alpharetta's case adds to a recognized pattern rather than standing alone.

How to use it

Flock's system has a built-in accountability step: it prompts an officer to select a reason before running a plate search, creating a log meant to make misuse visible after the fact. In practice, per the audit logs Braithwaite cites, Bozzo nearly always picked "Wanted Person" or "Traffic Infraction," reasons that had nothing to do with why he was actually searching, because doing so was, in his own words, "just a quick keystroke." That is the clearest illustration in the case of how thin the safeguard can be in practice: it depends on an officer choosing to log the truth, and nothing in the log itself flags a false reason code as false. What actually surfaced the misuse was not Flock's own controls but two separate human checks: colleagues who noticed Bozzo and his former partner spending on-duty time together, which triggered the department's internal directive months earlier, and WIRED's public-records request, which is how the audit logs became public at all.

How solid is it

The reporting rests on primary documents: Sergeant Jabbar Braithwaite's full internal investigative report, obtained by WIRED through a public-records request, along with the Flock audit logs he cites inside it. WIRED also has on-record comment from two named department officials, Lieutenant Jason Hiott and Police Chief Trent Lindgren, confirming the leave, the resignation and the ongoing criminal investigation. Flock did not respond to WIRED's request for comment, and neither did Bozzo, though his reaction to being contacted, changing his Facebook name and photo, is itself something WIRED documented rather than inferred. Where the account is necessarily one-sided is inside the relationship itself: Bozzo's version of its length and ending conflicts with his former partner's, and WIRED presents both without resolving which is accurate, since neither is verifiable from outside what the two told investigators.

Risks and caveats

The article never gives a year for the Flock searches or for Bozzo's leave and resignation dates; only the start of the relationship, "late 2025," is dated, so the timeline has to be read as recent rather than pinned to a specific year. Neither his former partner nor the second officer is named; her name is redacted even inside the quoted internal documents. No criminal charge or statute is specified, only that a criminal investigation is "ongoing" in the Criminal Investigations Division, and no disciplinary outcome is reported for either his former partner or the second officer, only for Bozzo. The article does not explain how Flock's audit logs technically work, or exactly how WIRED verified the search counts, beyond citing the documents and the logs Braithwaite quotes. And because both Bozzo and Flock declined to comment beyond that non-response, the account of Bozzo's own reasoning rests entirely on what he told Braithwaite during the internal investigation, not on anything he has said publicly since.

“just a quick keystroke”

— Dustin Bozzo, on why he logged his Flock searches as "Wanted Person" or "Traffic Infraction"