Garrett Langley, Flock’s CEO, told cops that a 404 Media story about cops using Flock to track someone who self-administered an abortion was "entirely false." He's lying.

In the call, Langley strategized with cops about how to deal with journalists, suggesting that they avoid talking to national outlets and that cops focus on telling “sob” stories.

“Let me handle The New York Times, you handle your local media. They want to hear from you, you know your reporters, they’ll pick up a sob story,” Langley said.

“There’s a story reported by 404 Media of a Texas officer using Flock to try to find a woman who had an abortion. And it’s entirely false. They knew it was false. Because there’s a few things, right, because one, it’s not illegal to have an abortion in Texas. It’s illegal to administer an abortion. So the woman could never have been under investigation for having an abortion. So that’s problem one,” Langley said in the meeting.

In fact, court records obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and shared with 404 Media show that Texas authorities did discuss whether they could charge the woman with a crime on the same day they performed the Flock search. An affidavit said, “it was discussed at the time with the District Attorney’s Office and learned the State could not statutorily charge [the woman] for taking the pill to cause the abortion or miscarriage of the non-viable fetus.” Police documents categorize their work on the case as a “death investigation.”

In that case 404 Media revealed in May 2025 which Langley called “entirely false,” authorities in Texas searched Flock cameras nationwide for a woman who self-administered an abortion. That search included cameras in states where abortion is legal. The incident showed in real terms what healthcare access and privacy advocates had warned about: that in the wake of Roe v. Wade, more law enforcement may use surveillance technology to track down people who are seeking reproductive healthcare. At the time, the Sheriff Adam King of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office told 404 Media the woman’s “family was worried that she was going to bleed to death, and we were trying to find her to get her to a hospital.” (It later turned out the Flock search was performed more than two weeks after the abortion, making this explanation dubious).