A family dispute brought police to the phone of an Indiana sheriff’s deputy, but the investigation soon moved from threatening text messages to more than a year of searches through a law-enforcement license-plate camera network.
James Joseph Heneghan IV, 33, was a Hancock County Sheriff’s Office deputy when a relative went to McCordsville Police in March and reported messages that included a warning that the relative’s “kids will suffer.” The complaint eventually reached Indiana State Police, which began examining his use of Flock, a system that allows officers to search vehicle detections collected by automated license-plate readers.
Court records obtained from Hancock Superior Court 2 attribute 6,196 Flock searches to Heneghan between December 1, 2024, and March 16, 2026. Hundreds of searches involved vehicles connected to people in his personal life, including his wife, a man who had known her, a former girlfriend, and members of that woman’s family.
One Complaint Led Somewhere Else
Among Hancock County Sheriff’s Office users, Heneghan recorded the highest number of Flock searches in every month reviewed and accounted for more than one-fifth of the department’s activity during the period examined…