It was about to be a long night in Huntington, West Virginia. Mayor Patrick Farrell stood before 10 members of city council in a white dress shirt and dark blazer studded with an American flag pin. Behind him sat his constituents and residents from neighboring towns. Some had their arms crossed, while others held a […]
Features Policy Tech The city that fought Flock Searching for the ‘silent majority’ of supporters for Flock’s surveillance technology in one West Virginia town. by Lauren Feiner Oct 26, 2026, 10:00 AM UTC Link Share Gift Photography: Chris Alo for The Verge Lauren Feiner is a senior policy reporter at The Verge, covering the intersection of Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill. She spent 5 years covering tech policy at CNBC, writing about antitrust, privacy, and content moderation reform. It was about to be a long night in Huntington, West Virginia. Mayor Patrick Farrell stood before 10 members of city council in a white dress shirt and dark blazer studded with an American flag pin. Behind him sat his constituents and residents from neighboring towns. Some had their arms crossed, while others held a steady glare in his direction. Less than a week before the July 13th meeting, a 33-year-old named Jackie Harper had been shot and killed in Huntington. It was the kind of crime Farrell had promised to get under control. But a breakthrough in the case just days after the killing suggested something promising to Farrell. Harper’s suspected killer, said the mayor, had been found in another state — and it was Flock cameras that helped track him down. The network of automated license plate reader technology, Farrell said, had also helped find a suspect in another tragic double killing earlier in the year of a beloved middle school basketball coach and his brother, a city worker. “Take that in just this year, and then take it back to all of the cold cases that we have,” Farrell said, referencing an unsolved case from more than 20 years ago where four teens were killed in Huntington on their prom night . Shortly after the gruesome shooting, police said they suspected it was linked to crack cocaine dealers from Detroit. To this day, officials still point to a stubborn flow of drugs from Michigan as the central scourge of the community. The prom night murders remain unsolved. “Think about what might have happened had we had this technology. For the next seven hours, that’s what dozens of residents of Huntington and surrounding areas imagined as they stepped up to the microphone to address the city council. Their vision of a Flock-filled future sounded far more bleak. Individuals’ rights to privacy would be trampled. They would be stalked and surveilled. Perfectly legal day-to-day activities could be subject to abuse by Flock itself or rogue police officers with access to its recordings. Sometime after 2AM, a few speakers simply read from George Orwell’s 1984 , passing a copy of the book back to the next person in line who wanted it, committed to keeping councilmembers up and looking into their own crystal ball as long as they could. Several members of the city council shared their concerns. Language in the proposed contract was not as tight as they would have liked to protect the city, potentially opening it up to lawsuits, a few warned. And given how strongly opposed so many residents seemed to be — both at the meeting and in private outreach in the days leading up to the vote — even if the technology might be helpful, was it really necessary to vote right now? Noah Jasper Gibson poses for a portrait outside Po-Boy’s Tires. Photo: Chris Alo for The Verge Farrell told the officials that he was inspired to bring Flock to Huntington after speaking with other mayors at a conference who said the tool was the key thing that helped them to reduce crime. “Have you spoken with the mayors of any cities who have canceled their contracts with Flock?” one councilmember asked. “I have not,” said the mayor. But amid hours of argument against the contract, the majority of the council remained unconvinced. They approved the resolutions that would let Farrell enter Huntington into business with Flock, 6-4. After an initial vote rejecting a motion to table the contract indefinitely, a camera recording the live stream of the meeting began to shake. “Is that thunder?” the council chair asked. Someone off-screen responded, mentioning the constituents watching in an upstairs auditorium. “That’s your taxpayers.” Huntington, several locals tell me, is a place where people would give you the shirt off their back. Every interview during my visit seems to end with a lengthy list of restaurants to try and a firm request that I reach out if I need help with anything else at all. It’s a fairly spread-out city dotted with a popular downtown food hall, quaint shopping areas, a city park, and anchored by Marshall University, which is led by the former CEO of Intuit. A state delegate I meet, Ryan Browning, describes it as a “small town” with a “big city feel,” and he lights up talking about the local summer concert series and his favorite cafe that turned him into a coffee drinker. On the weekend I visit, everyone seems to be walking around in kelly green in preparation for Marshall’s Division 1 NCAA football team’s home opener, at a stadium that can host more than 38,000 people — just about 7,000 shy of the city’s own population. “I think what makes Huntington a very special little pocket of West Virginia is the people in the community and how they’re just ready to roll up their sleeves,” Holly Smith Mount, a Marshall alumna and city councilmember who voted against the Flock contract, tells me. Part of that is the fact that the city has “had our share of tragedies,” she says. It’s grappled with a series of large floods , a plane crash in the ’70s that killed 37 members of the Marshall football team alongside coaches and staff (and became the subject of the movie, We Are Marshall , starring Matthew McConaughey), and a drug epidemic that has rattled the community for years. The Cabell-Huntington Health Department found in 2015 that drug overdose was the third-leading cause of death in Cabell County, which encompasses much of Huntington. Following a 2018 study, Johns Hopkins University researchers said the county had the highest opioid overdose rate in the state. But because of that, it’s also a place with a lot of tenacity. “I know a lot of people who are barely making it, even including myself, a lot of Gen Z people,” says Noah Jasper Gibson, a young musician I meet while he’s protesting Flock. “Even though their situation’s hopeless, they’re still making the best of it. They’re still out protesting after working 12 hours. They’re still donating their money when they have almost nothing left to give … I think it’s the spirit of those who strive for more that makes Huntington what it is.” Longtime Huntingtonian Brian Trippett, who goes by the moniker “The Front Porch Conservative” on his local streaming talk show, says there’s “a certain amount of lovable curmudgeoniness to our city.” That might explain why Farrell, when asked after the vote on the Flock contract about his constituents’ reactions, described those who opposed it as part of “a very loud and vocal minority.” On the other side, he added, “is the silent majority.” He said he’d heard from hundreds who support the contract. For the next seven hours, that’s what dozens of residents of Huntington and surrounding areas imagined as they stepped up to the microphone to address the city council. Their vision of a Flock-filled future sounded far more bleak. Individuals’ rights to privacy would be trampled. They would be stalked and surveilled. Perfectly legal day-to-day activities could be subject to abuse by Flock itself or rogue police officers with access to its recordings. Sometime after 2AM, a few speakers simply read from George Orwell’s 1984 , passing a copy of the book back to the next person in line who wanted it, committed to keeping councilmembers up and looking into their own crystal ball as long as they could. Several members of the city council shared their concerns. Language in the proposed contract was not as tight as they would have liked to protect the city, potentially opening it up to lawsuits, a few warned. And given how strongly opposed so many residents seemed to be — both at the meeting and in private outreach in the days leading up to the vote — even if the technology might be helpful, was it really necessary to vote right now? Noah Jasper Gibson poses for a portrait outside Po-Boy’s Tires. Photo: Chris Alo for The Verge Farrell told the officials that he was inspired to bring Flock to Huntington after speaking with other mayors at a conference who said the tool was the key thing that helped them to reduce crime. “Have you spoken with the mayors of any cities who have canceled their contracts with Flock?” one councilmember asked. “I have not,” said the mayor. But amid hours of argument against the contract, the majority of the council remained unconvinced. They approved the resolutions that would let Farrell enter Huntington into business with Flock, 6-4. After an initial vote rejecting a motion to table the contract indefinitely, a camera recording the live stream of the meeting began to shake. “Is that thunder?” the council chair asked. Someone off-screen responded, mentioning the constituents watching in an upstairs auditorium. “That’s your taxpayers.” Huntington, several locals tell me, is a place where people would give you the shirt off their back. Every interview during my visit seems to end with a lengthy list of restaurants to try and a firm request that I reach out if I need help with anything else at all. It’s a fairly spread-out city dotted with a popular downtown food hall, quaint shopping areas, a city park, and anchored by Marshall University, which is led by the former CEO of Intuit. A state delegate I meet, Ryan Browning, describes it as a “small town” with a “big city feel,” and he lights up talking about the local summer concert series and his favorite cafe that turned him into a coffee drinker. On the weekend I visit, everyone seems to be walking around in kelly green in preparation for Marshall’s Division 1 NCAA football team’s home opener, at a stadium that can host more than 38,000 people — just about 7,000 shy of the city’s own population. “I think what makes Huntington a very special little pocket of West Virginia is the people in the community and how they’re just ready to roll up their sleeves,” Holly Smith Mount, a Marshall alumna and city councilmember who voted against the Flock contract, tells me. Part of that is the fact that the city has “had our share of tragedies,” she says. It’s grappled with a series of large floods , a plane crash in the ’70s that killed 37 members of the Marshall football team alongside coaches and staff (and became the subject of the movie, We Are Marshall , starring Matthew McConaughey), and a drug epidemic that has rattled the community for years. The Cabell-Huntington Health Department found in 2015 that drug overdose was the third-leading cause of death in Cabell County, which encompasses much of Huntington. Following a 2018 study, Johns Hopkins University researchers said the county had the highest opioid overdose rate in the state. But because of that, it’s also a place with a lot of tenacity. “I know a lot of people who are barely making it, even including myself, a lot of Gen Z people,” says Noah Jasper Gibson, a young musician I meet while he’s protesting Flock. “Even though their situation’s hopeless, they’re still making the best of it. They’re still out protesting after working 12 hours. They’re still donating their money when they have almost nothing left to give … I think it’s the spirit of those who strive for more that makes Huntington what it is.” Longtime Huntingtonian Brian Trippett, who goes by the moniker “The Front Porch Conservative” on his local streaming talk show, says there’s “a certain amount of lovable curmudgeoniness to our city.” That might explain why Farrell, when asked after the vote on the Flock contract about his constituents’ reactions, described those who opposed it as part of “a very loud and vocal minority.” On the other side, he added, “is the silent majority.” He said he’d heard from hundreds who support the contract. HCAG member Candy Tapp reaches out to commuters in the community. Photo: Chris Alo for The Verge Jason Arthur, chair of the city council’s public safety committee who voted to approve the contract, believes “not as bad” is still unacceptable. “My mindset is operation zero,” he says. Yes, the city’s own public safety dashboard shows violent crime was down 30 percent in the first six months of the year compared to 2025, but that’s not good enough. “Is one murder better than five murders? Absolutely, but it’s still a murder.” Farrell insists that though the Flock contract is multiyear, it’s funded annually, so the city council could simply choose to stop funding it after one year if it doesn’t work as expected. But at least under the current budget, the money allocated for the Flock contract couldn’t simply be rerouted to other issues like funding the animal shelter, says Arthur, because it was set aside specifically for law enforcement equipment. Arthur and Archer, the city council vice chair who also voted in favor of the contract, both say they’ve heard from this quiet faction that Farrell insists exists. Arthur says he listens to the residents who show up at city council, but like the mayor, cautions they aren’t necessarily representative of all of Huntington. “When I make decisions like this, especially with public safety, I think of the people that are voiceless,” Arthur says. “So I’m thinking of the elderly, I’m thinking of our children.” “I am not surprised that people have very sincere concerns about privacy,” he told WSAZ. “For eight and half hours I had ears open” at the city council meeting, he said, hearing 50 people speak out. But “just because you come to city council and you speak out, doesn’t mean you speak for the majority of the city,” he said. Throughout the interview, he referred to a separate group of constituents: the silent majority. Farrell is a clean-cut Huntington native, whose tie-less blazer and button-down look at city council is still a touch more formal than the councilmembers’ attire. He’s the son of a nurse / hospice executive and a judge. “I was raised by a nurse’s heart and judge’s sense of justice,” Farrell told the West Virginia Chamber . Farrell served almost a decade in the Air Force and then pursued his MBA at Duke University, becoming optimistic about the impact he could make through running businesses. When he returned to Huntington, he ran a clean water solutions company and joined several boards, including Marshall University’s board of governors, where he helped recruit former Intuit CEO Brad Smith to lead the institution. City Hall spokesperson Chrisa Hayes declined The Verge ’s request to interview Farrell for this article, saying he wouldn’t be commenting on the ballot measure effort. Hayes did not respond to a detailed list of questions seeking comment on this article. Farrell’s vision for Huntington, according to past interviews and campaign materials, is for the city to become a thriving, safe place, where residents feel they need not look elsewhere for opportunity. So when Farrell attended a conference for newly elected mayors in December 2024, just before taking office, he was keen to figure out what other cities were doing to improve public safety. This, he’s said, is the first time he learned about Flock. HCAG member Candy Tapp talks about how many signatures she collected. Photo: Chris Alo for The Verge Farrell said he’s been listening. “I am assuming good intentions by everybody, and I’d like all of you to as well,” he begins his remarks, clarifying that it would apply to all public safety technologies, not just Flock. He shares residents’ concerns and disdain for mass surveillance, and this ordinance will help safeguard their privacy. Huntington is lucky, actually, he says. Other cities had to enact safeguards after the fact. Huntington is getting to craft them before. This time, he’s read up on those mayors who paused their Flock contracts. Several of them did so to put those guardrails in place, he says, but intend to resume them. “I am assuming good intentions by everybody, and I’d like all of you to as well,” Farrell begins his remarks, clarifying that it would apply to all public safety technologies, not just Flock. He shares residents’ concerns and disdain for mass surveillance, and this ordinance will help safeguard their privacy. Huntington is lucky, actually, he says. Other cities had to enact safeguards after the fact. Huntington is getting to craft them before. This time, he’s read up on those mayors who paused their Flock contracts. Several of them did so to put those guardrails in place, he says, but intend to resume them. “You really have no idea what you’re about to do. You’re about to give away your rights.” “I don’t want my kids to grow up with stories of, ‘Oh, this used to be a great place 50 years ago,’” Steve McDilda tells me. Newton Gitonga Freelance Writer Newton Gitonga is a tech journalist covering gadgets, PC hardware, AI, data centers, and the wider tech industry. His interest in technology started early, taking apart things around the house to see how they worked, often to his dad’s frustration. His curiosity sometimes got the better of him, including a few failed attempts to fix laptops, one of them a gifted Dell XPS. He has previously written for Notebookcheck, ZyCrypto, CoinCentral, and Crypto News Flash.