This Innocent Woman Spent 13 Days in Jail Because of a False Flock Hit

0:01This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+. The highway patrol officers went to the flock. They identified what they thought was a subject vehicle and that's what they concentrated on to the exclusion of everything else.

0:35They simply never looked into that. Officers are going to flock and whatever they find in the flock, they're going.

0:46Hello and welcome to the 404 Media Podcast, where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds, both online and IRL. As a reminder, 404 Media is a journalist-founded and owned company that does reporting for humans by humans. To support us, subscribe at 404media.co. You'll get access to all our articles, bonus segments on our weekly pod, and early access to our interview episodes like this one. I'm Jason Kebler. And this week, I'm talking to Lindsay Isaacs and her lawyer, Patrick McGeehan. Last year, Lindsay was falsely arrested and imprisoned after authorities used Flock's license plate reader system to pull over the wrong person in a hit and run that killed three people.

1:26Lindsay spent 13 days in jail because of the screw up. She was completely innocent. Her car was not involved and yet she was pulled over and arrested anyway. This all happened because authorities were looking for a black Dodge Durango and used Flock's freeform search to look for a black SUV. For people who don't remember, Flock's freeform search can be used to search for essentially anything. So police put in a description of a vehicle rather than a specific license plate. And they're looking for, in this case, a black SUV. Lindsay's popped up because she happened to be driving a black Dodge Durango three miles west of where the crash happened a few minutes before the crash happened.

2:05Lindsay was arrested even though there was no damage to her car because she didn't get in an accident. She again spent 13 days in jail before the charges against her were dropped. This is one of the worst cases of flock related policing screw-ups that we have ever seen. And an innocent person had their life totally upended because of it. I spoke to Lindsay and Patrick about what happened, the case, flock surveillance, and their lawsuit against the police who did this to her.

2:35Lindsay, you have been through one of the most harrowing experiences I could possibly imagine based on incorrect evidence from a flock camera that happened in the fall of last year. Can you just explain to people who don't know what happened to you? Yeah, I was falsely arrested accused of a triple vehicular homicide that happened on last October 2025 on I-4. My car had no damage and it was impounded for seven months until I was arrested seven months later. And I spent 13 days in jail. Can you explain sort of like what happened in terms of like when you were pulled over, etc. Like what did you think was going on?

3:17So I wasn't actually pulled over that evening. I went home and parked and went inside and went to sleep. And I, cops came to my door at 4.45 in the morning, next morning, and told me that my car was involved in a triple vehicular homicide. So I was extremely confused. I was asking, how are they saying this? Where's the evidence? I was not involved. How are they saying there's damage on the vehicle when there's not? It was right in front of me. Yeah, it all happened really fast. Yeah. So to be clear, I mean, you drove home the night before, went to sleep, hit nothing, obviously, and then were woken up with this.

3:57Did they arrest you on the spot and take you in at that point? What happened next? No, they didn't arrest me that night. Or that morning, rather. They just impounded my vehicle and told me they would contact me with any further details. And then I retained my criminal attorney, Patrick, that morning. and every day was a waiting game. For those seven months, every morning I would wake up and I would wonder what's going on with my car and if I'm going to get taken into custody for something I wasn't even involved in. We kind of weren't getting many answers for a long period of time. I did sue the FHP back in February of 2025 and shortly after that, I got arrested.

4:43I sued them for my vehicle back, a civil forfeiture. So you got arrested and then you spent 13 days in jail. Patrick, you know, as her attorney, what happened here? Like, what went wrong? How did this happen? I mean, the investigative bias was outrageous in this particular case. Basically, what led to Lindsay's arrest is about three miles west of the scene where the crash occurred, there was a flock hit on a black Dodge Durango, which was Lindsay's car. They had a witness, a single witness, that identified a black Dodge Durango as causing this accident. So the Highway Patrol, immediately, as a lot of law enforcement agencies do, they went to the flock cameras, they found the hit, and they pursued that lead.

5:30But what they also had at the time is they had other witnesses saying that it was a white Durango, and another witness said that it was a maroon Durango. They had that information at the same time, but never looked into it. And they basically disregarded it once they focused on Lindsay's Black Durango. So they tracked down the Black Durango. They impounded it. It was sitting in impound for seven months. We were getting no answer. So we turned around and sued the highway patrol to get the vehicle back. And when we sued the highway patrol, shortly thereafter, they got an arrest warrant and it affected the arrest.

6:08So I've been reporting on Flock for years at this point. And I've seen multiple cases where there has been a mistaken identity. And in some cases, there's a clerical error where the wrong license plate is inputted, like there's a typo or something like that. In some cases, someone is pulled over for quite a petty situation or a car is reported stolen, but then the actual owner is pulled over because the car had been recovered or was like fall asleep, reported as stolen. And in this case, it sounds like they were using something that we call freeform search, which is like a relatively new feature to flock.

6:46It's a case where they don't have a license plate, but they have like a description of a person or a vehicle. So in this case, it sounds like they had a witness say it was a black Dodge Durango. They likely type in black Dodge Durango into the system and then your car popped up and it seems like they didn't actually have like a license plate that was tied to you. And so it sounds like you were just like the victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time with cops who are looking for one set of details and it just happened to match with you. I mean, is that sort of like what you understood happened here?

7:23That's exactly what they did. They got the hit on the Black Durango, and then they got the tag number, and then they searched again for that tag, and it came up with a second flock hit that was closer to Lindsay's house. But the first flock hit they had was three miles west of the actual scene. We had a timestamp on that flock hit, and we had a timestamp on the dispatch, and we were able to use that flock information to show through time distance analysis that Lindsay was actually past the crash scene when the crash occurred. So they pick up the second flock hit up by her apartment in Palm Coast, and that's how they tracked her up there.

8:02They located her home and impounded her vehicle. Yeah. I mean, so this is one of the problems. It's like a black Dodge Durango is a very common car. And so if you're just doing such a vague search and have to leave populated area. I'm sure there were a lot of Durangos driving around at that time. And it's like there are assumptions made that leads to an innocent person being arrested and being put through months of hell. I guess I'm just curious sort of like what you have learned about the FLOC system and how it's used in policing during this whole experience. I mean, I've had a bunch of cases that are involving FLOC and tag reading cameras.

8:40And I'm very familiar. I used to be a policeman. I used to be a homicide detective in Miami. These officers of detectives are using the SWOC technology to work on cases, but they're using it to the exclusion of everything else. They're not making it part of their investigative process. They're making it all of their investigative process. They're only investigative process. And we're seeing that in a lot of cases. Yeah, I think that's one of my biggest concerns, just as I have been reporting on this, is that there are certainly cases where Flock has been used to find a missing child or an abducted child, find stolen cars, things like that, where it's very well suited for specific cases sometimes.

9:21But what we're seeing is that for almost any crime, the first thing that cops are doing is they're typing a license plate or a free form search into Flock and then they're going from there. Correct. That's what I'm seeing. So can you explain a little bit about sort of what this case hinges on? Like, it seems like it's pretty straightforward. I mean, you have a car that has no scratches on it. They did arrest another person in this triple vehicular homicide eventually. What is the case about now? Is it about how you were treated, Lindsay? Or is it about, it's not about proving your innocence anymore.

9:59Your innocence has been proven at this point. Yeah, I guess what I, all the mental anguish I went through in jail and also out of jail for those seven months. Of course, being incarcerated was the worst part, but not knowing and the unknown for the seven months before that, it was pretty terrible. Patrick, how do you think this happened beyond just like Lindsay being arrested in the first place, which we've sort of talked about? But how does something like this drag on for so long when you have a vehicle that has no scratches on it? Like, I just don't understand how this was messed up so badly.

10:39Well, that's an issue that we're having discussions about now that's ongoing. I mean, it's a classic case of conditional bias. The officers, the highway patrol officers went to the flock. They identified what they thought was a subject vehicle, and that's what they concentrated on to the exclusion of everything else. They had information at the same time that they were investigating Lindsay that there were other vehicles involved, and they simply never looked into that. When the criminal case was finally dropped against Lindsay and they arrested the new person, they brought in different investigators who followed a proper investigative process.

11:19And all that information was revealed in that second case. We got a lot of information out of the arrest of the new driver that assisted us in putting Lindsay's case together. And they used, in that new case, they used Flock extensively. I mean, they must have had a Flock camera in front of that lady's house because they had all kinds of pictures of her vehicle, both before it was damaged, after it was damaged, and after it was repaired. all over town. They had her going to the mechanic, getting the car fixed and going up and down her street. But we're seeing this more and more in criminal cases where officers are going to flock and they're just, whatever they find in flock, they're going with.

12:02Lindsay, had you heard of flock before this all happened to you? Or was this all kind of news to you when it was used against you? I knew what it was. I really didn't know much about it, but I knew that there were floor cameras. I didn't know there was as many as there are, you know, everywhere. Did you have any thoughts about them or about this type of policing? And I bring that up because I interviewed a woman in Colorado a few months ago who was arrested for basically like a burglary that she didn't commit. And the cops came to her house. They had printouts from the flock system of her car being near the burgled house.

12:45And it was a similar situation where the vehicle matched the description of what they were looking for, but it was not her. She didn't do it. And she was similarly arrested. She thankfully didn't go to jail. But when I talked to her, she was saying that before this all happened, she was very pro flock and sort of pro surveillance in general, just because she was saying like, you know, they can help solve crimes in the community and that sort of thing. And she thought, you know, well, I don't do anything wrong. And then, you know, this, this happened to her and she said it sort of like changed her perspective on it.

13:18So I'm just curious, like, if this experience has changed your perspective on this type of surveillance, or if it's something that you've just been like learning about as, you know, as this happened and sort of the fallout from all of it. I mean, I always thought surveillance was good. Now I have different thoughts about the flaw cameras because of what happened to me, but I am learning more as it goes on. But I think what they did to me, it was more than just the flaw cameras. I mean, yes, that was a big part of it. They needed to really do their job and tell the truth. That was a big part of it.

13:58There was a lot of lies and just a lot of things going on behind closed doors that I didn't know about.

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19:39Patrick, you said that you are a former police officer. You've sort of been around working cases that I'm sure involve surveillance and that sort of thing all the time. I'm curious how you think this technology should be used, if it should be used, sort of like what the guardrail should be, that sort of thing, so that maybe there is space for it in some way, shape, or form, but should there be some sort of restrictions so that cases like this don't happen? Yeah, I think there should. I mean, I'm not for the surveillance state. I don't think we need to be like London where there are cameras on every corner doing facial recognition and tracking people and their daily movements.

20:19I don't think we need to be tracking innocent, everyday citizens. There needs to be something, whether it's a warrant requirement or some procedure that's employed, putting guardrails on this system. It is used properly in some cases. I've had cases where it was properly used. But the cases you're seeing now that are coming to the attention of the abuses of this system where officers are being fired. I think they had six Georgia officers fired last week for improper use. We've had some in Florida. where they're stalking former girlfriends and wives and tracking people and providing information to unauthorized persons.

20:58I mean, that needs to stop. You know, it's the same thing with the technology they have in law enforcement databases where they can run tags. And, you know, we have had cases where clients' tags have been run for non-law enforcement purposes where officers are running girlfriends' tags and boyfriends' tags and stuff like that. You need to have those similar safeguards. You need to have that logging and tracking, and you need to have that requirement of law enforcement use only, improper law enforcement use only, not the willy-nilly stuff that they are doing now. I'm curious, like, as you've been through this process of this specific case, are you hearing from other people around the country?

21:36Like, this is, I believe, maybe the most egregious one that I've heard of a mistaken identity and where there's been such a horrible consequence of you being arrested and spending time in prison. Patrick, have you heard from other people, other attorneys, other clients, other victims where similar things have happened since this has become public? Yeah, when Lindsay's case went public and it started gathering news attention, I've been overrun with everything from civil rights issues, dealing with the police, to the flock issues. But the flock issues are significant. I probably have hundreds of people reach out to me over flock issues and send me links to everything in our Florida area.

22:20These things are exploding in Florida. We're finding them everywhere. We're finding them in wildlife management areas. We're finding them at public gun ranges, at FWC ranges, places you wouldn't expect to find this technology. They're finding it. And it's just all over. And there's a lot of attention in the central Florida area, particularly about the flat camera usage. And there's been, I think in the last month, there's been five of them that have been cut down. You know, people are going out, cutting them down, which is never a good thing to do because that's absolutely a felony. but the flock cameras and numbers are just exploding everywhere.

22:58We had one, you know, those portable signs the police put up to slow you down. They flash the lights. Speed limit's 35. You're going 40 and they'll flash a different color. Somebody found one of those and posted a video online that had a flock camera in it. So as the car passes by, it picks up the speed. And as the car passes by, the flock camera gets attacked. I mean, these things are popping up everywhere. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, the company has really exploded in popularity. I've been writing about them for years at this point. And four or five years ago, it's like they were in a few dozen cities and towns across the US.

23:37And I think really over the last couple of years, it feels like almost the entire country is blanketed in these things at this point. And one thing that we found is that as their network gets larger and larger, the potential for abuse or something going wrong, it's not a linear thing because you can end up tracking someone across an entire state, across state lines, things like this, because they all network together. And the potential for someone in one town over to have a mistake where they input the wrong license plate into a hot list or something like that, it just becomes like there's so many more people using the system.

24:20And so we're hearing more and more of these sorts of cases. We've also seen a lot of cities decide to end their contracts with FLOC because of some of these cases. I'm curious if you've been following that at all. Well, I did. Yeah, I did see this. Most notably, I think the LAPD canceled their contract with FLOC recently. And a lot of people are bringing this up. What I'm seeing is a lot of people are bringing it up in like city and county commission meetings, pushing back against it. And here in the Central Florida area, there's been a lot of pushback. And I think that at this time, that's probably the only way that you're going to get restraints on the system is to push the political leaders to disengage from it.