Happy Wednesday, hope you all are doing well—or on the way of doing so. Here’s this week’s news.

Carrying the badge can be a significant source of stress for police officers' loved ones. But that anguish does not always stem solely from an officer's sense of duty.

Cases involving the misuse of Flock cameras have increased at an alarming rate in recent months.

A Hancock County, Indiana, deputy allegedly searched Flock's license plate reader system more than 6,190 times to track his wife, ex-girlfriends, and family members. Court documents reviewed by WXIN indicate the searches occurred from December 2024 through March 2026. WKRC reports James Heneghan now faces 441 felony counts.

He is one of 11 officers charged in Flock cases in the past month.

In Georgetown, Ind., officer Justin Craig allegedly searched his wife’s car 88 times. He searched a man she knew more than 200 times, WDRB+WAVE reports. His attorney plans to move to dismiss.

In Indianapolis, five officers were charged on Sept. 23. One of them, Jonathan Schultz, faces 26 counts, including stalking. Prosecutors say he tracked women he met in public, Axios reports.

Virginia State Police charged Androu Eskandar, a former James City County officer, with 13 counts. The county says the searches involved “an internal matter involving coworkers.”

And in Georgia, Baldwin County arrested and fired a 25-year training officer and a former deputy, the Union-Recorder reports. Richmond County deputy Corey Whitfield became the seventh employee arrested in his agency’s Flock cases, per WRDW.

This product from Flock Safety addresses several longstanding challenges for cities. The cameras are generally less expensive to install and maintain than many older license plate reader systems because they are solar-powered and use cellular data connections.

The information collected by Flock cameras is also highly valuable to police departments. Flock's "Vehicle Fingerprint" technology can identify a vehicle's make, body type, color, and license plate state, allowing officers to conduct more flexible searches. Those searches become even more powerful because, unlike many previous systems, Flock's cloud-based network can connect data from locations across the United States where the technology has been deployed. An officer can therefore search for a vehicle across state lines with relative ease.

That convenience has also made the system attractive to bad actors. While an Associated Press investigation found record-keeping is inconsistent and no single agency tracks misuse, Atlanta News First has reported on a wave of arrests and firings in recent months. It says the uptick is a result of Flock releasing an AI audit tool that flags unusual searches to supervisors.

Weird Wrongs is following the phenomena as well. Subscribe for future coverage of this story and others like it.

A Connecticut man once exonerated is back in jail.

Michael “Miz” Smith, 53, of Norwich, who was awarded $1.5 million by the state for a wrongful incarceration, is now in federal custody on a cocaine charge.

According to The Day, he was taken into custody earlier this month. The U.S. Attorney’s Office confirmed it. An October 20 grand jury indictment charges him with possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Authorities allege more than five kilograms.

Smith remains detained. The affidavit is sealed.

The award came earlier this year. The legislature approved it in February. Smith was convicted in 2006 of manslaughter in a 2001 fatal shooting outside a Groton nightclub.

Smith served time for valid firearm and drug charges, along with the wrongful manslaughter one, until 2012.

A judge ordered a new trial after finding credibility problems with a state witness and a due process violation. In 2022, the state dropped the charge.

The Claims Commissioner set the award at $1.51 million. That covers five years and three months served only on the manslaughter conviction. The commissioner’s office did not say whether Smith has received the money.

No arraignment date has been announced.

A husband taped his wife to a chair for football: Police say a man duct-taped his wife to a basement chair for nearly an hour. He allegedly admitted doing it so he could watch a football game without interruptions.

A woman invented sexual assault claims to punish two men: A woman falsely told police she was sexually assaulted by two different men. State police found the assaults never happened, and she admitted making them up because she didn’t like the men and thought it would punish them.

A dead infant’s identity used for four decades: A man was convicted of living more than 40 years as a boy who died at about 3 months old. He allegedly had his daughter call him “uncle” in public, and was exposed when he renewed the passport.

A drunk-driving suspect ate toothpaste: After a crash into a power pole, a driver allegedly tried to eat toothpaste from the tube to hide the alcohol smell. Her explanation on bodycam was that she has a “bad mouth.”

A fleeing driver was run over by his own stolen car": A man fleeing deputies in a stolen car opened the door, fell out, and the driverless car ran him over. He is in critical condition, and reports don’t explain why he opened the door.

A driver reversed across a busy road for a movie moment: A 28-year-old drove backward about 660 feet across every lane of a busy road. His passenger said he “wanted a Fast and Furious moment,” and the driver said he did it because he knew he could.

A jailer allegedly handed an inmate a cuff key: A former jailer allegedly let an inmate use a hospital restroom alone with a borrowed handcuff key, and he escaped for about five hours. The inmate says the jailer told him to “go, because he didn’t care.”

A shopper allegedly held a lost phone for ransom: Per the headline, a Florida woman held a Publix shopper’s lost phone for ransom, and she is quoted saying she was broke. The page wouldn’t load.

A driver allegedly watched porn before a fatal crash: A woman is charged with automobile homicide after her phone showed a porn site accessed under two minutes before a crash that killed a passenger. She told officers she was at fault.

A deputy allegedly hit a child hard enough to be heard through a wall: A fired deputy was arrested on child cruelty charges after other children heard the assault. He had been promoted to investigator weeks earlier.

Students petitioned to ban a convicted killer from campus: A man serving life for a 1984 murder and attempted murder was attending law classes at a Montreal university while on day parole. He hasn’t been on campus since early October, and the university is reviewing its protocols.

A wheelchair user died stuck on railroad tracks: The user was stuck on the tracks as a train approached.

Flock camera stories

A detective hid a camera and abuse material while stalking
A former detective allegedly used plate readers like Flock and department database access to track his wife and two men more than 20 times in late December. His wife found a recording camera hidden in a light switch that had filmed her with another man. Investigators found drives and devices with child sexual abuse material in his police duty bag.

A detective tracked his wife on a license plate camera during her medical emergencies
A detective was fired for using Flock to track his wife. She says she feels guilty and that he searched it seven times over two years, only when their usual tracking devices lost her during diabetic emergencies.

A man confessed. Police encouraged him to take it back.

A Connecticut judge found that this is what happened in a 1994 New Haven murder case. A man went to police on his own and implicated himself and another man in the shooting.

He later recanted. The judge wrote that investigators encouraged it, because his account did not fit their conclusion that Adam Carmon was the shooter.

The shooting killed a 7-month-old girl and paralyzed her grandmother. Carmon was convicted and sentenced to 85 years. He served about 28 years.

That’s because in 2022, a judge overturned the conviction. The judge found prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense. He also found police failed to pursue other suspects. The judge did not declare Carmon innocent. The state declined to retry him, and the case was dismissed in June 2023.

Carmon then sued. His lawsuit accused police of fabricating evidence linking him to the murder weapon.

On October 22, New Haven agreed to a $16.5 million settlement, according to the City of New Haven. The state had already awarded him $7.9 million. The settlement still needs approval from the city’s Board of Alders.

A detective who helped put a man away for life has now been ordered to pay him $3 million.

A federal jury ruled against former Boston detective John Brazil, according to WCVB.

Brazil was part of a police corruption ring from 1990 to 1996. The Suffolk County DA’s office says the officers lied, robbed drug dealers and filed false warrant applications. Brazil testified against two fellow detectives in exchange for immunity.

He served no prison time and collects a pension.

Brazil was the lead detective in James Lucien’s case. Lucien was convicted of murder and armed robbery in the 1994 Roxbury shooting of 23-year-old Ryan Edwards. He served about 27 years of a life sentence.

In December 2021, a judge threw out those convictions. The judge said the person to blame was Brazil.

Lucien’s court filings allege Brazil took money from the victim’s car and made up a robbery story to cover it. They also allege evidence in the car was never tested for gunshot residue.

Lucien still has a separate federal case pending against the city of Boston. The city says it looks forward to fully resolving it.