Florida Highway Patrol troopers arrested an innocent couple at gunpoint in 2025 after a Flock camera misread a single letter on a license plate.
That was somebody else's nightmare – but Lindsey Isaacs was about to live her own.
What they did next – with a mountain of contradictory evidence sitting right in front of them – should terrify every American who owns a car.
Flock Camera Hit Sends Florida Highway Patrol After the Wrong Woman
On October 4, 2025, a hit-and-run on Interstate 4 near DeBary, Florida killed three people – motorcyclist Joaquin Deno, Flagler County Deputy Administrator Jorge Salinas, and his wife, Nancy. Witnesses described a dark-colored Dodge Durango fleeing the scene.
Florida Highway Patrol investigators pulled up Flock camera data. The system flagged a black Dodge Durango registered to Lindsey Brooke Isaacs, captured three miles west of the crash at 9:51 p.m. – two minutes before the collision. That one data point became the entire case.
The problems with it were visible from the start. A 911 caller described a maroon Dodge Durango and provided a partial plate that did not match Isaacs' vehicle.
Paint transfer on a struck Ford Focus was red or maroon – not black. A specialized FHP inspection team later examined Isaacs' SUV and found zero crash-consistent damage.
Isaacs told investigators the same thing from her front door. "Where is the damage on the vehicle?" she recalled asking police. "Because I'm standing right in front of it and I don't see any damage."
They impounded her SUV and sat on the case for six months.
Florida Highway Patrol Arrested Her on Eight Felonies and Prosecutors Dropped Every Charge
On April 17, 2026, Isaacs got the call from her attorney. "They are arresting you for this crime." She surrendered that day, facing eight felonies – three counts of vehicular homicide, three counts of leaving the scene of a crash involving death, and two additional charges.
A conviction on all counts meant life in prison.
Her first several days she spent in solitary confinement – a toilet, a sink, and a metal sleeping slab with a thin mat. Jail officials kept her isolated because her charges were so serious.
"I was devastated, I was scared," Isaacs said. "I thought my life was over."
She spent 13 days behind bars before making bond.
On May 22, the State Attorney's Office dropped all eight charges. Investigators then arrested Alisa Lee Montalvo – driving a maroon Dodge Durango – on nine charges including three counts of vehicular homicide and tampering with physical evidence. Montalvo has not been convicted.
Isaacs received a personal apology from the head of the Florida Highway Patrol. She has since filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against two FHP troopers alleging false arrest, wrongful imprisonment, and malicious prosecution.
License Plate Reader Wrongful Arrests Are Happening Across America
The Institute for Justice has documented more than 31 cases of innocent drivers stopped, detained at gunpoint, or jailed due to Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) errors since 2018 – with the majority occurring since 2023.
Officers misreading or misinterpreting camera data cause more of those wrongful stops than the cameras themselves.
A San Diego woman in a red Alfa Romeo was arrested because Flock flagged a similar car located five miles from the crime scene at the time of the incident.
A Colorado financial planner received a court summons for package theft after a camera placed her vehicle near a neighbor's porch, and the officer refused to review dashcam footage she offered to prove her innocence.
DeSantis Bans Flock Cameras from Florida State Highways
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has seen enough. On August 31, the Florida Department of Transportation revoked all permits for license plate readers along state highway rights-of-way, giving agencies 30 days to remove the hardware before the state does it for them.
"When I see a police officer using it to track an ex-girlfriend," DeSantis said at an August press conference, "I'm like, 'What's going on with this?'"
He made clear he will not let Florida become a surveillance state. "Go after criminals? Great. But surveilling just regular Floridians' movements? That's a bird of a different feather."
Multiple Florida county sheriffs followed by shutting down their programs entirely, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered his state to stop funding Flock cameras. More than 100 local governments nationwide have cancelled or not renewed their contracts.
Flock Safety cut its default data retention period from 30 days to seven and announced mandatory new audit tools for law enforcement.
The company also noted that its camera data actually helped Isaacs – the timestamp placed her Durango three miles short of the crash site when the collision happened, a detail her attorney used to argue she was already past the scene before anyone died.
Two FHP troopers saw one camera hit and built a case around it, dismissing a 911 caller's plate description, paint transfer evidence pointing to a different vehicle, and their own inspection team's finding that Isaacs' Durango had no crash damage.
Mediation in her civil lawsuit is scheduled for later this month. The men who put her in solitary for crimes she never committed have not been charged with anything.
Sources:
- Kurt Knutsson, "Innocent woman says police use of Flock camera led to 13 days in jail," Fox News, September 9, 2026.
- "One ALPR Camera Hit. Eight Felony Charges. Potentially Facing Life in Prison. It Was The Wrong Person," Yahoo News, August 2026.
- "Dozens of Innocent Motorists Have Been Pulled Over, Detained at Gunpoint, or Jailed Due to AI License Plate Camera Errors," Institute for Justice, July 27, 2026.
- "Florida bans Flock cameras and other license plate readers from state highways," NBC News, August 31, 2026.
- "Florida pulls the plug on license-plate surveillance cameras across state highways," BizPac Review, September 1, 2026.
- "A Flock camera hit sent troopers to her door. They had the wrong car," InvestigateTV, September 14, 2026.
