Lufkin, Texas: a police officer is sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to 100 counts of misuse of official information for searching the department's Flock license-plate readers to track his ex-girlfriend, her family and people she dated between mid-2024 and December 2025
A Lufkin Police Department officer of 11 years pleaded guilty on 30 September 2026 to 100 counts of misuse of official information and was sentenced to five years in prison, according to the Angelina County District Attorney as reported by KTRE, the Lufkin Daily News and the Tyler Morning Telegraph. A Texas Rangers investigation found he ran more than 25,000 license-plate inquiries on the department's Flock Safety readers for purposes unrelated to law enforcement, about 18,000 of them on plates associated with three people. Prosecutors say he used Flock and other law-enforcement databases to gather the identities, home addresses, plates and vehicle registrations of his former girlfriend, her family members and people she had dated. His arrest affidavit, reported by KTRE in August, says her plate alone was searched more than 10,000 times between June 2024 and December 2025, and that she told investigators he had once threatened to find and kill a former partner of hers. He agreed to a lifetime protective order for her on the basis of stalking, and the state dropped separate stalking charges. The audit began after USA Today asked the department about an officer's Flock use in August 2026. Lufkin has suspended its use of the cameras.
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 04/10/2026