Henderson County is the region’s most active live fight.
Timeline
- 2025: Sheriff’s Office buys in. Sheriff Lowell Griffin’s office purchases 12–13 Flock cameras for $44,150, with no commission vote, then or since (Hendersonville Lightning).
- Fall 2025: Fletcher PD deploys. Counts and contract largely unpublished.
- Early 2026: Laurel Park PD adds 4 cameras. Countywide total reaches ~39–42 per DeFlock mapping.
- August 3, 2026: Austin Rhodes addresses the commissioners. The Edneyville berry farmer behind the DeFlock Henderson County group takes the fight to the board (WLOS). Getting Flock Out
- August 10–17, 2026: The petition more than doubles in a week. 937 signatures on Aug 10, 1,000+ by Aug 14, 2,071 by Aug 17 (the defund petition). Getting Flock Out · How Cities Won
Links of note
- Sheriff’s Flock transparency portal: 491,198 vehicles detected in 30 days
- Hendersonville PD portal: the city’s own numbers
- The defund petition: WNC’s fastest-growing removal push
- Hendersonville Lightning: the citizen-uprising story; best local press
- WLOS: Rhodes on Flock’s “honor system” safeguards
The inventory (verified against Flock’s own portals, Aug 17, 2026)
- Sheriff’s Office (Sheriff Lowell Griffin): 12–13 cameras bought 2025 for $44,150. The county’s own transparency portal shows 491,198 vehicles detected in the last 30 days, 324 searches, and data shared with a national network including the FBI, US Postal Inspection Service, and out-of-state police. Retention still 30 days despite Flock’s new 7-day recommendation.
- Hendersonville PD (Chief Blair Myhand: “ALPRs are the best law enforcement technology since the two-way radio”): 15–16 cameras, ~$45,000/year (portal).
- Fletcher PD (since fall 2025) and Laurel Park PD (4 cameras, early 2026): counts and contracts largely unpublished. Countywide: ~39–42 cameras per DeFlock mapping.
- No commission vote has ever been taken on any of it. Chair Bill Lapsley has signaled the board may not even take the question up. (Hendersonville Lightning)
The resident campaign to remove the cameras
Austin Rhodes, a 30-year-old Edneyville berry farmer and beekeeper, started the defund petition: 937 signatures on Aug 10, 1,000+ by Aug 14, 2,071 by Aug 17, more than doubling in a week. (A counter-petition to increase Flock funding: 61 signatures.) Rhodes spoke at the Aug 3 commissioners’ meeting and runs the DeFlock Henderson County group; his response to Flock’s new safeguards: “unwise and foolish to use the honor system.” (WLOS)
The pressure points
No renewal date is public and no vote is scheduled, so the levers are the annual budget (the sheriff’s line item), the petition’s growth curve, and the Macon precedent one ridge west: same kind of county, unanimous removal, driven by constituent volume. The NC-11 candidate Jennifer Balkcom is from Henderson County and has never been asked about her home county’s petition.
Video: commissioners stream on Vimeo (no auto-captions; the one WNC body my transcript pipeline can’t cheaply cover); Hendersonville City Council is on YouTube. Best press: the Hendersonville Lightning.
Related: WNC and NC · Getting Flock Out · How Cities Won