Wisconsin cops used Flock plate readers to build a pretext for a weed search

Sheriff’s deputies in Wisconsin leaned on Flock’s automated license-plate reader network to reconstruct Edward Abrams-Phillips’ movements, noting that his car repeatedly pinged cameras heading north into Michigan—where cannabis is legal—and back into Wisconsin, where it isn’t. In an April 2025 case reviewed by 404 Media, they cited that cross-border travel pattern as part of the probable cause for pulling him over and searching his vehicle for marijuana.

Abrams-Phillips was already wanted for bail jumping tied to domestic violence charges, but the charging document shows deputies went further, treating his frequent trips to Michigan as evidence he was a drug courier and coordinating deputies to intercept him. The bail-jumping charge was ultimately dropped, and he was convicted only of marijuana possession—the exact offense the surveillance was built to catch.

The case is a concrete example of how ubiquitous plate-reader networks let police retroactively map a person’s routine travel and reverse-engineer a justification for a stop. Framing lawful interstate movement as suspicious raises pointed questions about pretextual policing and the Fourth Amendment implications of a commercial surveillance dragnet that logs where ordinary drivers go without a warrant.