Outcomes
Banner: Field 8 (Hidden Valley Park, Blue Springs) by Vincent Parsons · CC BY-NC 2.0
Under Sunshine tracking 211-2026, listed evaluation and many outcome categories returned “No Preexisting documents.” The City pointed policy questions to Flock’s vendor portal. This page treats the seven Success Stories on that August 27, 2026 capture as the concrete wins and divides City Flock spend and surveillance intensity by seven.
A second table lists named Blue Springs Flock anecdotes from local press that the portal does not feature. Those are still press anecdotes, not a city-held multiyear evaluation package. Portal snapshot: Sunshine · Portal.
Cost and intensity per portal story
Portal capture Aug 27, 2026. Paid-path estimate May 2023 through mid-2026. Rolling 30-day portal windows are not lifetime totals.
| Metric | Figure | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Portal Success Stories | 7 | Narrated wins on the City-referred portal |
| Dated story span | ~31 months | Jan 2024 skimming through Jul 19, 2026; Ulta undated |
| Paid-path estimate (mid) | ~$485,000 | Contract path May 2023–mid-2026; band ~$445k–$525k |
| $ per portal story | ~$69,000 | Mid ÷ 7; range ~$64k–$75k |
| Unique vehicles / story | ~121,000 | 848,365 in 30 days (portal) ÷ 7 |
| City alerts / story | ~88,400 | 618,781 alerts as of Jul 15, 2026 (211-2026) ÷ 7 |
Same 30-day portal window: 489 user search sessions; 61,678 hotlist hits; 164 cameras labeled LPR and other; 30-day retention. Those activity figures roll daily.
How the paid-to-date band was built
This archive has no invoice ledger. The midpoint is a contract-path estimate from authorized annual structures (not a City spreadsheet of checks written):
- Contract #2023-082 / Resolution 22-2023 (eff. May 2, 2023): Year 1 about $148,350; order-form recurring years about $130,500.
- Resolution 87-2025 (Oct 2025): + about $60,000/yr toward $208,350 annual, with first-year camera credit language in the packet.
- FlockOS 911 path about $15,000 (budget/ordinance materials in the archive).
- Excluded from the lead denominator: Safe City Year 1 schedule $0 via credits; Year 2 $88,880; RTCC civilian staffing (~$120k–$150k/yr). Decade max authorization remains about $4,666,900 under Resolution 108-2025. That is future authorization, not this paid-path mid.
Band used here: about $445,000–$525,000 (mid ~$485,000) ÷ 7 ≈ $64,000–$75,000 per portal anecdote. ACFR FY2024 names “Flock camera software leases” as a Public Safety cost driver without a standalone Flock dollar line. Resolutions: Library.
The seven portal stories
Sorted by date (undated last). Timing is relative to Safe City authorization, Resolution 108-2025 (Dec 15, 2025), not the earlier 2023 Flock contract. Paraphrase from the vendor portal HTML (2026-08-27). “Without Flock?” is an advocacy judgment on the portal’s own facts.
| Story | Date | vs Safe City | Flock’s claimed role | Without Flock? | Portal’s own limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Credit-card skimming | Before | Station CCTV plate unreadable → Flock ID → warrant | Possible | Oldest dated portal win; LPR after unreadable station CCTV | |
| Domestic assault, traffic stop | After | Victim named suspect; plate from department systems entered into Flock; highway hit | Solvable | Portal: without Flock, likely not located “as quickly” | |
| Shooting, vehicle ID / seizure | After | Leads with no witnesses; identify and seize vehicle | Possible | No witnesses stated; portal role is ID and seizure | |
| Armed robbery, fled vehicle | After | Identify fleeing vehicle → rapid arrest | Possible | Portal wording: “rapid” arrest | |
| Package theft, porch | After | LPR → owner → full recovery (~$1,000) | Solvable | Victim declined prosecution; warrants arrest | |
| Missing person / kidnapping assist | After | Locate victim out of state after neighboring-agency request | Solvable | Credits Flock for location; does not prove no other path | |
| Ulta Beauty burglary ring | Undated | Undated | LPR ID of vehicle; multi-state loss-prevention coordination | Possible | Multi-store link is detective / LP work beyond the plate hit |
Cutoff: Safe City vote Dec 15, 2025. Portal dated stories: 1 before, 5 after; Ulta has no portal date. None of these seven are proven Flock-only on the portal’s own wording.
Press stories not on the portal
These two named Blue Springs cases appear in local coverage and are absent from the portal Success Stories list captured Aug 27, 2026. Press clips are not a City evaluation package under 211-2026. Wilbur Young used vehicle-characteristic search (no plate on city CCTV). The Mayor’s June 2026 email described cameras that “simply take a picture of a license plate” (Community).
| Story | Date | vs Safe City | Flock’s claimed role | Without Flock? | Source / caveat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wilbur Young Park homicide Press | Before | City CCTV had vehicle description, no plate; Flock Freeform / vehicle fingerprint search → plate → hotlist → arrest ~two days later | Possible | KCTV5 (Apr 26, 2024). Press anecdote; not multiyear ROI. | |
| Hit-and-run / pursuit Press | After | Victim partial plate + Flock footage → locate vehicle → stop / pursuit | Possible | KCTV5 (Jun 11, 2026). Ops anecdote; not an evaluation package. |
If you count these two with the portal seven, that is 9 named anecdotes (mid paid-path ÷ 9 ≈ ~$54,000 each). FOX4’s Feb 2023 pilot line about “two crimes” in the first week is too thin to list as named cases here. Combined portal + press dated stories: 2 before Safe City, 6 after, plus Ulta undated.
Solved without this investment
The tables above cover nine named Blue Springs anecdotes (seven portal + two press). Several turn on speed or plate recovery. That does not prove a decade-scale Safe City path was the only way to work these cases. The Blue Springs write-ups leave these openings. Peer cases in the same crime classes did not credit a citywide Flock network.
What Blue Springs’ own anecdotes already show
- Domestic assault (portal): Victim named the suspect; officers pulled a plate from department systems; Flock showed highway travel. Portal text: without Flock, likely not located “as quickly.”
- Wilbur Young Park homicide (press): City-owned CCTV already supplied a vehicle description; Flock Freeform was used because the plate was not readable on that video. Canvass, tips, other cameras, and doorbell leads remain available with a make/model/color start.
- Hit-and-run / pursuit (press): Victim supplied a partial plate before Flock footage helped locate the vehicle. Partial-plate BOLOs and patrol lookouts predate fixed LPR meshes.
- Package theft (portal): Same crime class often turns on porch cameras and neighbor tips elsewhere in the metro (peers below).
- Credit-card skimming (portal): Station CCTV saw the truck; the portal’s incremental claim is an unreadable plate until LPR. Peer skimming cases still ID suspects from business CCTV without a municipal Flock page as proof of concept.
- Ulta / multi-state burglary (portal, undated): After a plate lead, the multi-store link is loss-prevention and detective coordination across agencies, not unique to Blue Springs’ camera count.
- Missing-person assist (portal): Neighboring-agency request and out-of-state locate can use warrants, carrier records, partner CCTV/LPR, and tips. The portal credits Flock for location; it does not prove no other path.
- Shooting (Mar 2026) and armed robbery (May 2026) (portal): Harder incremental cases (few/no witnesses; fled vehicle). Portal language is lead development and “rapid” arrest.
Peers by crime class (not Blue Springs)
Comparative only. Same or adjacent fact patterns, without a credited citywide Flock win narrative:
- Porch / package theft
- Kansas City / Clay County (2025): Ring doorbell + bait package with an Apple Air Tag → charges. Kansas City (2025): Victims’ surveillance cameras + officers spotting suspects with boxes. Same crime class as the portal porch story.
- Pump skimming
- Grandview QuikTrip (2025): Station surveillance ID’d a white F-350 and suspect description (KMBC same case). Same crime class as the portal Hy-Vee skimming story. Grandview coverage did not rely on LPR; some Blue Springs pieces did.
- Domestic assault / fled scene
- Lewis County / Canton (2024): Witnesses + multi-agency locate in downtown Canton (KBUR). Same crime class as the portal domestic story’s “as quickly” line.
- Vehicle crime / robbery leads from doorbell video
- Kansas City (2024): Armed-robbery / carjacking series where an officer reviewed doorbell camera footage for a suspect vehicle description, then located and pursued the vehicle. Description-first path (armed robbery portal story; Wilbur Young). No Freeform credit in the piece.
- Hit-and-run with public vehicle details
- Kansas City Costco pedestrian hit-and-run (2025): KCPD released make/model, plate, and VIN and asked the public for tips (KMBC). Different path than the Blue Springs pursuit anecdote; hit-and-run work still runs on victim/public vehicle information, not only a fixed LPR mesh.
Harder cases and the eval gap
Plate readers can speed no-witness or fled-vehicle work. Blue Springs still has no city-held multiyear outcome package under 211-2026. The portal and press lists are short next to alerts and plate-read volume, and several marketed wins already include named suspects, partial plates, city CCTV descriptions, store video, or partner-agency requests.
Limits of this page
Unique-vehicle counts are a 30-day portal window, not lifetime plate reads. The ~$485k mid is a contract-path estimate, not an audited invoice total. Dividing the $4,666,900 Safe City max by seven (or nine) is the wrong paid-to-date figure; that max is decade-scale authorization. Ask Council for a city-held evaluation package with success criteria, the categories that returned “No Preexisting documents” under 211-2026.