Florida Man Charged for Vandalizing Decoy Camera
A man in Florida has been charged with felonies after reportedly vandalizing a decoy camera designed to catch vandals. This particular decoy was made by a police officer using a 3D printer to aid in a sting operation.
On August 20, 2026, just after midnight, police arrested Evan Meyer, who allegedly used garden shears belonging to his father to knock a Flock Safety camera off a pole and destroy it. Unbeknownst to him, the camera was not real; it had been set up by the Oviedo Police Department in a location where genuine Flock cameras had been stolen in the prior month.
According to the arrest report, the police described their operation like this: “Several of our Flock Safety cameras were stolen between 7/23/2026 – 8/3/2026 out of the Lockwood Blvd. corridor, and we replaced them with clone-style Flock cameras. These ‘bait’ cameras were designed to resemble authentic Flock cameras but did not come with the same price tag or data collection capabilities.”
The fake cameras were installed the Sunday before Meyer’s arrest, and law enforcement monitored them until Thursday. An officer had crafted the working replica at home with a personal 3D printer and donated it for the operation.
The arrest report revealed that Meyer, when questioned about the potential replacement cost of the camera, estimated it to be between $1,000 and $5,000. This indicated that he recognized it as a valuable piece of equipment, albeit he later learned that the actual replacement cost was about $800, plus installation fees. He mentioned hearing negative comments regarding Flock cameras, and feeling inclined to act against the closest one to his home, he took his father’s pruning shears, walked to the camera, and smashed it.
Meyer is now facing three felony charges: attempted grand theft, criminal mischief for property damage exceeding $1,000, and property crimes involving computer equipment.
Recently, a Florida sheriff weighed in on the situation, suggesting that concerns regarding Flock cameras were due to “ignorance” and “misinformation.”
St. Johns County Sheriff Robert Hardwick spoke on August 14 about the presence of Flock cameras, which primarily function as automatic license plate readers, in his area where around 180 cameras operate. Some locations reportedly have multiple cameras clustered together.
“Here in St. Johns County, we’re not catching the same rhetoric as the rest of the country,” Hardwick noted. “We’re not really hearing those concerns across Florida because of our support and leadership.” He dismissed fears of mass surveillance as just a temporary issue that would fade away and linked critiques of Flock cameras to movements seeking to defund police in Democrat-run cities.
