Three 19-year-olds in South Carolina face criminal charges after allegedly destroying a Flock Safety automated license plate reader camera and setting off a fire that could have reached nearby homes. The incident happened during the early morning hours of August 15 along Harmony Church Road in the Edgemoor area of Chester County.
According to Fox News, citing the Chester County Sheriff's Office, the teens cut down the camera pole and then beat the equipment's battery pack with a hammer until it exploded and caught fire. The sheriff's office estimated damage at more than $5,000.
Blaze Fuller, Samuel Carlisle, and James Ryerson, all 19, were arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy and malicious injury to personal property, according to jail records reviewed by Fox News Digital. All three were booked on August 18. Fuller posted a $5,000 bond and was released the following day. Carlisle and Ryerson were also released August 19.
The fire alarmed at least one nearby resident. "My house is over here," said Edgemoor resident David Cunupp, pointing toward his property. "Could've caught fire and burned if it wasn't for the rain."
Cunupp said he was not necessarily opposed to the cameras themselves but raised questions about who controls them. "They could be used for good, but I don't see where a private company's got access or running it instead of the DMV or the government," he told WBTV.
The incident occurred against a broader backdrop of growing national tension over Flock Safety's network of automated license plate readers. The company operates more than 120,000 cameras across 49 states and conducts more than 20 billion vehicle scans each month, according to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who launched a Senate investigation into the company this week.
Hawley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, sent a letter to Flock CEO Garrett Langley describing the network as an "unprecedented national surveillance network." He wrote that "instead of serving discrete local investigations, as contemplated by our constitutional processes and safeguards, these camera networks harness artificial intelligence to pool what they capture into a national database that customers can search."
Flock spokesperson Paris Lewbel previously told Fox News Digital the company would respond to Hawley's questions directly and looked forward to explaining "the safeguards built into our platform and how law enforcement agencies use Flock to solve crime and find missing people."
Privacy advocates and opponents of the cameras have publicly called for legal and legislative challenges rather than vandalism. The Senate investigation into Flock's operations is ongoing.
