A resident identified as Trotter told the Suffolk County Legislature's Public Safety Committee on Thursday that police covered up a stalking complaint involving a town supervisor's daughter and, later, her husband, saying he plans to bring a 25-page document to the New York Attorney General.
"This is clearly a cover-up and as everyone knows the cover-up is always worse than the crime," Trotter told the committee.
Legislator Rusk asked whether any charges were ever filed. Trotter said the son-in-law was arrested the night before an election and pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, while the daughter was never arrested despite her cell phone pinging near the complainant's house six of seven nights, according to Trotter.
The committee then took up a series of local laws. A proposal to require businesses with security cameras to share footage with police and a measure to reduce residential alarm registration fees were each tabled on 9-0 votes, as was a proposal to establish a program called a "Blue Envelope" program, which was tabled for amendments on a motion by Legislator Tempe.
The committee also approved accepting a New York state grant to fund a sheriff's re-entry task force, moving grant-funded positions into the Sheriff's Office budget, on a motion that Legislator Lennon seconded.
Much of the meeting was devoted to questioning Flock Safety representatives Trevor Chandler and Joe Rosen about the company's license-plate-reader cameras used by the Sheriff's Office, police department and East End agencies. Chandler said data is stored on cloud servers and retained for 30 days in Suffolk County before being "hard sanitized" and irretrievable, and said Flock does not sell customer data or use facial recognition.
Chandler confirmed the company offers a nationwide search feature and acknowledged past security issues, including an incident in which attempts were made to access images on roadside cameras, though he said Flock's cloud database itself has never been hacked. Asked whether every passing vehicle has its photo taken, Chandler said, "If a vehicle passes, yes."
One legislator raised concerns about surveillance, asking whether the cameras could livestream, and later said she worried about Suffolk County being a target if it lacked the technology. "My other concern is that I don't want to be the only municipality who doesn't have the cameras because if I'm looking to steal a child then I'll just come to Suffolk County, right?" she said.
Legislator Bontempe argued privacy concerns about Flock were overstated compared with cell phone tracking, while Legislator Donnelly, who said he has served on the committee for nearly 10 years, voiced general support for the technology. One legislator also asked Chandler about the number of Flock accounts operating in the county, and Chandler said besides law enforcement, some East End agencies, private businesses, homeowners associations, a synagogue and a church hold Flock contracts.
One legislator said at the close of the hearing that the concern was not with current leadership but with the possibility of future misuse, and said legislation was being drafted to put guardrails in place with the council and other legislature members. Later, one legislator formally asked Flock to provide a full list of all its cameras operating in Suffolk County; Chandler said the company would look into whether it could legally comply.