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All eight Flock Safety Falcon cameras were stolen between July 29 and August 1, according to KIMT News.
Metal poles were cut near the base at each location; poles were found nearby in the weeds, but camera units remain missing.
Locations: Highway 61/Bundy Boulevard, Highway 61/Highway 14, Highway 14/Knopp Valley Drive, and Highway 43/Homer Road.
Estimated replacement cost: roughly $3,000 per unit, $24,000 total.
No cameras recovered. No suspect identified. Police are requesting public tips.
This wasn’t a council vote. Columbia Heights, another Minnesota city, bagged its Flock cameras in plastic and formally cancelled the contract after sustained community pressure. Winona’s removal required power tools. In Faribault, a man was charged after officers found a Flock camera missing with cables cut and dangling — the same cut-and-remove method, according to CBS News Minnesota. A pattern is forming.
Privacy advocates have warned that aggregated plate data can reveal “sensitive patterns like clinic visits, religious attendance, or political organizing,” according to Guardian reporting — a concern that reflects how mass data collection routinely functions when oversight is limited.
Social media responded with alibi jokes, residents claiming whoever did it was “fishing with me” or “at Bible study.” The whole thing played out like a community inside joke — the surveillance-tech equivalent of neighbors pretending they didn’t see who egged the HOA president’s house. The act became a Rorschach test for how Winona actually feels about being watched.