Where each Western North Carolina community stands on its camera systems, what the state layer above them requires, and which sheriffs hold immigration agreements. Each entry is dated and linked.
Macon County took its cameras down
On July 14, 2026, Macon County commissioners voted 5–0 to end their $47,000 Flock contract. Twelve cameras came down immediately. (Smoky Mountain News · WLOS)
The numbers that moved them: the sheriff’s office was logging 1 to 3 million plates a month in a county of about 37,000 people. On the record:
- Commissioner John Shearl, invoking the Fourth Amendment: “I don’t want a hunch. I want the truth.”
- Chairman Josh Young: “the people that I represent… they don’t want the cameras.”
- Commissioner Barry Breeden: “there’s a lot of unknowns in where the data goes.”
- A resident at public comment: “I love my government, but I don’t trust you as much as I trust my mother.”
The Macon County Republican Party organized against the contract, and commission candidate Dylan Castle, the county GOP vice-chair, spoke against it at public comment (Macon County). Our concern is accountability and oversight, not cameras as such; the position is stated in full on the homepage.
County deep dives
Full pages, built from meeting records, transparency portals, and local reporting: Asheville (the full timeline, linked to every meeting page) · Buncombe County (the county backbone + the 1,500 school cameras) · Henderson County (the removal petition) · Madison County (the June 9, 2026 meeting) · Haywood County · Jackson County (1.19M reads/month; WCU’s retention violation) · Macon County (the win, and its epilogue) · Transylvania County (Brevard’s live decision; Axon’s “free cameras” pitch) · McDowell County (the documentation hole) · Rutherford County (the vandalism story; Forest City’s audio detection)
Also organizing nearby: Mountain Indivisible (mountainindivisible.org, Spruce Pine) covers Mitchell, Avery, and Yancey counties with its “Flock Corral” resource page, meaning organized opposition now exists in at least six WNC counties.
County by county
Where each community stands, from the same data as the homepage board:
| Community | Systems | Where it stands | Next |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transylvania County | Flock Safety Axon | request withdrawn Sept 8 by the chief; the Axon taser and body-camera purchase is still pending and was not on the Sept 21 or Oct 5 agendas or the Sept 28 Public Safety Committee agenda; next check the committee on Oct 26 | October 12: Transylvania County Board of Commissioners Agenda not yet posted. |
| Hendersonville | Flock Safety | contested; chief presented Sept 3, no vote | |
| Henderson County | Flock Safety | removal ask; 14 of 17 speakers against on Sept 8; the chair said the board will discuss it publicly, no date set | |
| Asheville | Axon, the RTIC contract Axon, plate readers Fusus, the county network Flock Safety | Axon contract signed Aug 4, 2026, to Dec 31, 2033, $6,955,559 of it city money; Flock contract terminated Aug 25, removal and deletion unconfirmed. Pending: the Axon quote, Policy 1703, any audit, a written answer on fixed Axon readers. | October 13: Asheville City Council Agenda not yet posted. |
| Buncombe County | Fusus (Axon) | expanding; no published audit. On Oct 6, 2026 commissioners removed a $290,000 forfeiture-fund request for the FY27 FUSUS/Axon contract and a camera project from their agenda, with no reason stated; next check the Oct 20 agenda, due Oct 14 | October 20: Buncombe County Board of Commissioners Agenda not yet posted. |
| Boone + App State | Flock Safety | kept the cameras, cut sharing 96% after pulling the log | |
| Macon County | Flock Safety | removed; network membership still listed | October 13: Macon County Board of Commissioners Agenda not yet posted. |
| Haywood County | Flock Safety | commissioners voted to keep them | October 19: Haywood County Board of Commissioners Agenda not yet posted. |
| Madison County | Flock Safety | contested; organizing active, records requests refused | October 13: Madison County Board of Commissioners Agenda not yet posted. |
| Jackson County | Flock Safety | under public review | October 20: Jackson County Board of Commissioners Agenda not yet posted. |
| Rutherford County | Flock Safety | no county process on the record; a removal petition was presented at public comment Sept 8, with no board response | |
| McDowell County | Flock Safety | no public review found |
Clay County, which has no page here, has deferred to its sheriff; the commission chair: “The sheriff is vested with authority… we do not set law enforcement operational policy.”
Statewide, DeFlock mapping counts 1,000+ Flock cameras in WNC and ~2,819 plate readers across North Carolina. (NCLocal overview · DeFlockILM’s NC tracker)
Elsewhere in North Carolina: late August into September
Decisions elsewhere in the state since Aug 24, 2026:
- Davidson County, August 24. Commissioners voted unanimously to end the sheriff’s Flock contract and remove all 25 cameras, deactivated the next day and collected within 30 days, after 14 residents spoke against them; the sheriff and a Flock representative defended the system. The $76,000 the contract had cost was redirected to a mobile command center for the sheriff’s office. (WFDD · WFMY)
- Greenville, August 28. The police department dropped its plan to install ten Flock cameras after more than 40 residents spoke at the August 24 council meeting. None had been installed. (WITN)
- Dare County, September 1. Commissioners voted unanimously to remove the sheriff’s 14 cameras in the unincorporated county after more than a dozen speakers; Sheriff Doug Doughtie said removal could be done within two weeks. Nags Head’s 12 town cameras are separate and were not acted on. (Outer Banks Voice · WTKR)
- Brunswick County, September 1. A sheriff’s office employee resigned after a routine audit flagged misuse, and the sheriff referred the case to the State Bureau of Investigation; the office says a transparency portal is coming (Camera network misuse, documented cases).
- Under review as of Sept 8, 2026. New Hanover County’s commission chair has said the sheriff’s two-year, $219,000 Flock contract needs a comprehensive review before any further county funding (WHQR). Apex’s public safety committee meets September 24, 2026 on a ten-camera contract that expires in January 2027 (WRAL); Apex residents have drafted an ALPR governance ordinance (deflockapex.org).
Where the data goes: one county’s list
Flock’s transparency portals let each agency publish the organizations it shares data with. Henderson County’s sheriff has: 2,048 agencies in more than 40 states, including the FBI, the US Postal Inspection Service, an Air Force base, a HIDTA task force, five state police forces, and 212 North Carolina agencies from the SBI down to UNC Asheville’s campus police. Every WNC sheriff’s office on this page except Clay’s neighbor Cherokee appears on that list as a recipient, including the ones (Madison, Haywood, McDowell, Transylvania) that publish no portal of their own. By contrast App State’s campus police share with five agencies and Boone with six. The difference is a setting, chosen by a sheriff, with no law requiring it to be disclosed. The statute that allows it: What the Law Lets the County Do.
Who has signed with ICE
ICE’s participating-agencies list (August 21, 2026) shows 29 North Carolina 287(g) agreements. In the west: Henderson County Sheriff’s Office (Jail Enforcement Model, June 9, 2020), Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office (Warrant Service Officer, March 10, 2025), Avery and Caldwell county sheriffs (Warrant Service Officer, 2020), and Newland PD (Task Force Model, October 17, 2025). Buncombe, Haywood, Madison, Jackson, Macon, Transylvania, McDowell, Rutherford, Polk, and Watauga have none. The SBI, the Highway Patrol, and the Department of Public Safety, which a 2026 state law orders to sign, had not as of the list date (ICE). Since October 2025 every county jail in the state must notify ICE before releasing anyone charged with a felony or impaired driving, agreement or not; the laws, with text: What the Law Lets the County Do.
The state highway plate-reader program
The July 2026 state budget made the SBI’s highway plate-reader program permanent: about 140 highway camera locations across 17 agencies and growing, with the SBI’s stated ambition of “a camera at every entrance and exit to the state.” (WRAL · Daily Tar Heel · UNC School of Government analysis)
What NC law actually requires (G.S. 20-183.30 et seq.): a written policy, a 90-day retention cap, confidentiality, and a Class 1 misdemeanor for unauthorized access. What it doesn’t do: unlike Illinois, California, or Washington, North Carolina law says nothing about sharing your data with federal agencies or across state lines. North Carolina law does not address sharing with federal agencies or across state lines. Asheville’s sharing rules are APD policy; in August 2026 APD narrowed Flock sharing from a 500-mile radius to four states (row 5). The statute’s sharing clause, the sheriff-commissioner divide, the forfeiture money, and the three immigration laws passed over vetoes since 2024 are walked through on What the Law Lets the County Do.
NC’s first criminal charges for camera misuse (July–August 2026)
- July 29, 2026: a Charlotte-Mecklenburg officer became the first in NC criminally charged for an unauthorized Flock search.
- August 5, 2026: a Mooresville officer was arrested for stalking his ex-wife through Flock: 31 searches.
- Unauthorized plate-reader access is a misdemeanor under the same statute APD operates under. Both cases were found through audit logs, the records CAMS has asked Asheville to publish. (NCLocal)
Related: Communities that ended or limited camera contracts · Election 2026 · Claims Library