Morristown, Tennessee: police held a grandmother and grandfather at gunpoint and handcuffed them in June 2025, with their 3-year-old granddaughter left in the car, after a Flock alert flagged the grandmother's vanity plate, which matched a recovered stolen pickup's plate spelled with a zero; police say the stop rested on the crime database
In June 2025 Morristown, Tennessee, police stopped a couple driving their 3-year-old granddaughter to a doctor's appointment, held them at gunpoint and handcuffed them both. The grandmother's personalized plate spelled a nickname with the letter O; a Ford F-150 reported stolen in Claiborne County carried the same word spelled with a zero. Business Insider reported in March 2026 that officers received a Flock alert that the plate was stolen, that the Flock investigative summary recorded the couple's plate with a zero, and that the stolen pickup had already been recovered but was never removed from the system. The police department told WATE that the officer ran the tag as displayed, with an O, and that with either character it showed as stolen in the crime information database; the police chief told Business Insider that officers relied on the National Crime Information Center as protocol requires. The grandfather told WATE that he thought he might be shot and felt humiliated, and the grandmother said she was crying as she heard her granddaughter calling for her.
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 2 sources · Added 04/10/2026