On June 13, the DeFlock chapter of Upper Arlington held its first meeting. It would be the first DeFlock group in central Ohio. Six people showed up, including the group's two founders, Paul Shannon and Christian Gabis.
The organization aims to have Flock cameras removed from the community.
Now, Shannon and Gabis believe the group may have outgrown the 75-seat Friend’s Theater at the Tremont Branch of Upper Arlington Public Library.
“I’m shocked,” Gabis said. “Blown away at how many people showed up to our last meeting. And the interesting thing, we had almost 50 people at our last meeting and since that, our email list has more than doubled.”
The Upper Arlington chapter of DeFlock is the first time Shannon and Gabis have been involved in organizing.
“I've protested plenty, but never done any organizing, and really the only reason I did it is because no one else was,” Shannon said. “I went on the Deflock.org group’s page and there was nothing listed for central Ohio, and I was like, well, someone's got to be the first, so let's see what happens.”
Upper Arlington signed its contract with Flock in December 2020. Gabis said when he first saw the cameras, he didn’t know what they were.
“I noticed one by the McDonalds here in Upper Arlington and didn't really think too much of it,” Gabis said. “But then I saw more of them. I got on Google, poked around and pretty quickly found out what they were and thought, when did this happen? Who approved this?”
Gabis continued, “The further I dug, I just was more and more horrified by what I found. It just sat poorly with me, and I think with most people when they find out what they are.”
Shannon and Gabis aren’t the only ones organizing for the first time in central Ohio, either. Several grassroots organizations have popped up to oppose Flock.
In Worthington, 19-year-old Ellie Miles started a chapter of DeFlock after seeing the cameras at her former high school, Worthington Kilbourne.
“They were on school property and I, like my heart dropped, and I'm like, what, what is that? What are they doing here? And that prompted me to drive to genuinely every single Worthington school building and map where they were,” Miles said. “That made me really, really mad and to the point of emailing the school board. I started emailing the Worthington City Council, and I needed to slap a name on something and I was like, hey, DeFlock, DeFlock Worthington, bang, let's do that.”
Miles said her and her sister are working on a website for the group. She’s also used social media to organize with Worthington residents, some of whom are still in high school. The high school students were especially upset at Worthington City Schools' Flock contract.
Another first-time organizer is Reynoldsburg resident Sandra Coates. She created a group named “Flock Off Reynoldsburg,” after seeing the cameras and speaking with her neighbors.
“I really started to ask people, how do you feel about this?” Coates said. “And the thing that I was getting from both sides of the aisle, both Republican and Democrat, is we don't want to be watched in our communities.”
The political diversity Coates described has been apparent to the other organizers as well.
“This isn't left versus right, as so many things are,” Shannon said. “This is up versus down. I think this is one of the first issues to really bring that battle to the forefront, which is why we've been able to get people from across the spectrum.”
Shannon said the people who have come to the Upper Arlington DeFlock meetings have also expressed opposition to the cameras' use of artificial intelligence and data centers.
Flock’s connection to AI and data centers is what has grabbed the attention of Grove City organizers Karen and Steve Church. They created Progress Grove City in 2021 as a civics club. From there, the organization Protect Grove City, now led by Mandy Brooks, was created to oppose the construction of a large data center.
“[There] has been a big data center fight leading to a ballot initiative for the community consent agreement,” Karen Church said. “And from that conversation about the data center, we've started exploring the role of data centers to Flock cameras.”
“They're connected to something else that we fundamentally are not aligned with,” Brooks added. "When we realized that this is an issue and it also happens to be connected with this other big thing, we started just kind of doing records requests."
Brooks and the Churches are currently focused on campaigning for their ballot initiative on November’s ballot, but after that they plan on turning their attention to Flock.
Others are not new to grassroots organizing or opposing Flock.
Kat Finneran is part of 614 ICE Watch. She said she was wary of the cameras when the city of Columbus first began installing them in 2023. But then Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted its Operation Buckeye raids in the Columbus area in December 2025 and arrested close to 300 people. After that, Finneran and 614 ICE Watch increased their opposition to Flock.
“We started around February working on this and it was sort of in the aftermath of Operation Buckeye,” Finneran said. “I think part of the reason Flock across the country became so salient for a lot of people was the realization of how it was being used in ICE operations. And so that sort of hit us at the same time, I think it was hitting a lot of people, which was during Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis as well.”
Finneran said seeing the swell of grassroots organizing has been very encouraging. She added it’s easy for people to get involved by just taking a walk outside.
“Just walk around your block, do you see one? What camera is that? Who owns that?” Finneran said. “I think it's being able to have that conversation, just at the block level, you can do a lot in just your area commissions.”
The swell of grassroots organizing in central Ohio isn’t unique. The national DeFlock group said it’s seen grassroots organizations surge across the country, many of them also involving first-time organizers.
“There is a lot of networking and communication happening right now, which we love to see. One of the big strengths of this movement is that it's decentralized, grassroots and almost entirely volunteer run,” said Bob Smetana, an organizer with DeFlock. “I think this topic has been a gateway for a lot of people to start paying attention to surveillance more generally and to realize how Flocked we truly are, and I think the movement is still just getting started.”
And like grassroots organizations across the country, the central Ohio groups are seeing progress.
Reynoldsburg has canceled its Flock contract. So has Worthington Schools. Upper Arlington is discussing legislation on Flock use. And Columbus has paused its Flock camera use and expects legislation on Flock soon.
Some cities have also responded to even less organized efforts against Flock. Shannon said he and Gabis had spoken to some Hilliard residents about starting a DeFlock chapter there, but before that could happen, Hilliard City Council voted to pause its Flock camera use.
There have also been instances of vandalism of Flock cameras. Gahanna had three of its cameras vandalized, with two poles cut down and one camera stolen. All the organizers WOSU spoke to urged resident not to vandalize the cameras.
At DeFlock Upper Arlington's September meeting, Gabis began by telling the group to not vandalize any cameras.
"I think one of the first things I said was do not touch the cameras. Don't go near the cameras. You can look at them, but just don't touch them. There's no reason to go about vandalizing anything," Gabis said. "The city put them up, the city can take them down. It's not something we want to get close to. It's not worth catching felony charges over the cameras."
However, for these groups, canceling the Flock contract is just the beginning. Coates said the fight isn’t Flock-specific, but also focused on all automated license plate readers.
“Getting Flock out of Reynoldsburg was a small win, but our goal ultimately is to try to champion some legislation that would prevent any other vendors from taking its place,” Coates said. “I really would like a citizen-appointed overview board or oversight board for police technology and policing methods that are used in our community.”
The national DeFlock group is also working to broaden its message to be less Flock-forward.
Shannon and Gabis agree and want to create a citizen-led committee to approve any future surveillance technologies in Upper Arlington. In fact, they’re trying to draft legislation to do so.
“We don't want to just play whack-a-mole with technologies forever," Gabis said. “We want something in place to protect our city against, you know, future technologies.”
The ballot initiative is still in its early stages. Shannon and Gabis said the goal is to introduce something that would do two things: get Flock out of Upper Arlington and create a citizen-led commission for future police surveillance technology.
Gabis estimates the group needs close to 1,300 signatures to make the ballot. He and Shannon said with DeFlock Upper Arlington’s current email list of around 200, and with that number growing, it doesn’t seem too far fetched.
“When we had our first meeting and there were six of us, that was kind of a down-the-road dream,” Gabis said. “If we can get people to gather, maybe, six signatures apiece, we're there. That does not seem like a heavy lift to us.”
