Rhode Island
Scrap the Cams: Morales Would Kill Providence’s Flock—Days After Cranston Used It to Nab Thieves
What happened
Early on Sept. 11, 2026, Cranston police arrested two New York men — Anyeson Veras Martinez, 26, and Steven Velez Toribio, 29 — accused of stealing roughly 100 gallons of used cooking oil (valued around $200) from PJ’s Pub on Pontiac Avenue. According to Cranston Police, Flock automated license-plate readers flagged a white 2018 Ford Transit with Pennsylvania plate VDF0027 around 1:57 a.m. as associated with prior cooking-oil thefts. Officers located the van at the pub about 2:20 a.m. with hose-and-pump equipment and oil residue on the occupants. Chief Michael J. Winquist said Flock provided a timely investigative lead; officers made the arrest. WPRI and WJAR both covered the bust.
Across the city line, democratic socialist State Rep. David Morales won Providence’s Sept. 9 Democratic mayoral primary over incumbent Brett Smiley and is the heavy November favorite. At an Aug. 12, 2026 mayoral forum covered by the Boston Globe, Morales pledged to cancel Providence’s Flock Safety contract and take down the city’s roughly 60 Flock cameras (about $160,000 a year; contract set to expire in October), citing privacy and data-sharing concerns, including Illinois allegations involving Customs and Border Protection. Smiley defended the tool, pointing to cases including the Brown University shooter vehicle track and a 2023 North Main Street hit-and-run. WPRI reported the same Flock divide; Smiley also noted Morales’s 2021 defund-the-police advocacy, which Morales says he no longer holds.
After the primary, Providence Fraternal Order of Police President Michael Imondi told WJAR (Sept. 11) the union still has questions about Morales and that nearly 100 of about 450 officers could leave within a year, “possibly due in part” to the leadership change — a forecast, not a confirmed exodus. Morales told WJAR he looks forward to working with police and wants officers to know he will listen on public safety.
Update (Oct 28, 2026): WPRI counts 223 plate readers statewide, 29 in Cranston
WPRI’s Target 12 (Alexandra Leslie, Oct. 26) ran its own count. According to WPRI, “A Target 12 analysis found that as of this week there were 223 active automated license plate readers among local and state police departments alone in Rhode Island.” WPRI says that figure does not include cameras bought and used by private businesses such as Home Depot, and that “A total of 218 cameras are Flock’s, while five automated license plate readers used by Westerly police are operated by Verkada.”
By WPRI’s count, Providence has the most readers of any municipality, with 60. It is “followed by 29 in Cranston, 23 in East Providence, 22 in Pawtucket and 15 in Woonsocket.” WPRI also reported that six municipalities (Cumberland, Foster, Glocester, Narragansett, North Kingstown and South Kingstown) canceled their Flock contracts over the summer, and that “The cancellation took 36 cameras offline, according to a Target 12 analysis.”
WPRI also reported that Providence’s $477,500 multi-year Flock contract, signed in October 2023, expires May 16, 2027, according to police spokesperson Kristy dos Reis. That supersedes the October expiration described above. Providence police say 45 officers are authorized to use the system and are audited monthly.
Original reporting
Read the underlying coverage:
WJAR / TurnTo10 — 2 men accused of stealing cooking oil in Cranston (Sept. 11, 2026)
Boston Globe — Providence mayoral challenger says he would remove Flock cameras (Aug. 12, 2026)
WPRI — Providence mayoral candidates at odds over Flock cameras (Aug. 2026)
Virtue Forge commentary
Ideology is not a crime plan. Cranston just showed what a plate reader can do on a boring overnight theft ring: flag a known van, put cops at the right restaurant, and cuff out-of-state operators before they vanish down Route 37. Providence’s DSA Democratic nominee for mayor campaigned to yank the same class of tool off city poles as a trust-and-privacy trophy. Privacy deserves rules. Competence asks whether you harden the contract — audits, sharing limits, access logs — or throw away a capability that helped catch thieves next door and, by Smiley’s account, helped solve serious crimes.
Humble government does not confuse activist applause with safer streets. Free enterprise and American cities need cops who can chase leads faster than grease thieves can pump a tank. If Morales wants trust, start with audited sharing rules — not a campaign promise to darken the cameras while Cranston’s just lit up a suspect van.