Asheville’s fight has been argued as if the choice were cameras or no cameras. The choice on the table is between two companies, and the city’s exit from one is its deeper commitment to the other.
| What it sells here | Contract | The page | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flock Safety | 11 fixed plate readers, the national search network, transparency portals | $72,000 a year, ending Feb 2027 or on termination | The company, its products (Nova, FreeForm, Condor, drones), its own safeguards, and what leaks and audits show |
| Axon | Fusus (the RTIC platform), body and in-car cameras, tasers, drones, cloud storage, and now fixed plate readers built into streetlights | 7.5 years to 2033, plus 20 in-car readers in a separate July 2026 agreement | The company, the “blend in” hardware, facial recognition, the ethics board, the bundle |
Stories That Check Out is the cross-cutting ledger: dated, sourced incidents organized by harm (federal reach, reproductive care, stalking, wrong-person stops, tracking people not plates, hiding the tool, leaks, and corporate conduct when a town says no).
What Axon Contracts Do: what the same paper did to Baltimore, Mesa, Fontana, and Evanston, plus the data program the contract enrolls the city in by default. The Flockbook: Flock’s leaked script for selling councils on cameras, laid beside what Asheville officials actually said.
The national cancellations are on The National Wave; what the data becomes is on What They Can Actually Learn About You. The people: Rick Smith (Axon) and Garrett Langley (Flock), on The Vendors’ Executives.