Knox County, TN Flock Contract

Who approved this?

No source names who approved this contract yet. Contracts that arrive through procurement or a purchasing threshold often leave no vote to record.

Knox County Commission passed an emergency ordinance on August 31, 2026 by unanimous vote, sponsored by Commissioner Adam Thompson, ordering every stationary automatic license plate reader removed within 30 days along with its data unless that data belongs to an active criminal investigation. The ordinance also bars future agreements with license plate reader equipment providers. Spectrum News reported that the sheriff's office signed with Flock in 2020 and ran 143 readers, while WVLT put the figure at about 140; the Spectrum count is used because it is the more specific number. Spectrum News reported a 1.5 million dollar state Violent Crime Intervention Fund grant approved in 2025, of which 800,000 dollars went toward camera expansion, so that figure is grant money applied to the program and not a stated contract value. WVLT reported that the sheriff's office had proposed adding 270 more cameras and that purchases were repeatedly written at 10 dollars under the 25,000 dollar threshold that would have triggered mayoral review. Then Mayor Glenn Jacobs said the multi year Flock agreement might be null and void because of those procurement problems. A public hearing on August 24, 2026 drew protesters, and roughly 100 residents attended the meeting where the ordinance passed. No individual commissioner vote record, contract amount or contract term length is documented in these sources.