Savannah Police Officer Fired for Sharing Flock Access with ICE Agent Husband
Former officer Amber Harpe was terminated after an investigation found she gave her Flock camera database login to her husband, who conducted nearly 1,000 searches overwhelmingly targeting Hispanic drivers.
What happened
Savannah Police Department officer Amber Harpe was fired in August following an internal investigation that determined she had shared her Flock login credentials with her husband, Tyler Harpe, an ICE agent. While he had unauthorized access to the system, Tyler Harpe conducted 983 searches related to 97 license plates, which were overwhelmingly registered to Hispanic drivers. The Harpes stated the searches were conducted solely for law-enforcement purposes and denied using the access for personal reasons. The department noted that SPD does not share Flock data with ICE and that sharing access violated its security protocols. An interim major initially recommended an eight-hour suspension, but two other senior officers disagreed and voted to remove Harpe from the force.
Context
The incident highlights a breach of data access controls between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. Flock camera systems provide law enforcement with access to license plate recognition data; restricting its sharing with ICE suggests deliberate departmental boundaries around immigration enforcement activities. The concentration of searches on vehicles registered to Hispanic drivers raises questions about the nature and targeting of that access, though the Harpes characterized the searches as law-enforcement related. Harpe was one of six SPD employees terminated following this investigation, with four of them subsequently arrested—though Harpe was not among those charged.
What's disputed
The Harpes' claim that all searches were for legitimate law-enforcement purposes is not independently verified in the sourcing.