Every driver who passes through DeKalb County, Georgia gets photographed, logged, and run against a rapidly growing vehicle database, courtesy of a camera network the county just committed to for the next ten years. A sheriff’s sergeant with seventeen years on the job allegedly used that same database to look up things that had nothing to do with police work. That’s the headline. It shouldn’t be. The real story is what prosecutors had to charge him with once they caught him, because it has nothing to do with the license plate law at all.
On September 23, 2025, DeKalb’s Board of Commissioners approved Change Order No. 1 to Contract No. 2000081 in a single sitting: a ten-year, sole-source master services agreement with Flock Group Inc., not to exceed $18,969,939. County records describe it as funding additional license plate reader cameras, AI-enabled drone first responders, mobile security trailers, more surveillance cameras, and a service called Flock 911, all feeding a new Real-Time Crime Center. County CEO Lorraine Cochran Johnson unveiled the program, branded Digital Shield, on October 1 as a defining moment for public safety in the county.
Less than ten months later, on July 17, DeKalb County Sheriff’s Sergeant Kabiru Salawu, a member of the department since August 2009, was fired and arrested. An internal review found he had run queries through the county’s Flock system for reasons unrelated to his job. He’s charged with a felony count of violation of oath of office and a misdemeanor count of misusing license plate data, and he’s being held without bond. Sheriff Melody Maddox said the conduct amounted to “a serious breach of the public’s trust.” Investigators haven’t said what Salawu allegedly searched for or how they caught him, and the case remains open…