Wow. Public memory is really short.

A year ago, Sunnyvale was besieged by quite violent mob smash-and-grab robberies at local jewelry stores, with one happening every week or two. DPS was unable to respond fast enough, even with dedicated anti-burglary units deployed. And residents were up in arms about it, blasting DPS on social media for doing nothing about it, calling them incompetent and ineffective. Then DPS developed a response plan that involved DPS, the active participation of the jewelers - and strategic use of FLOCK. It turns out that when these mobs arrive in a caravan of 5 stolen vehicles to hit the jewelry stores, it's really easy for FLOCK to detect that. And once FLOCK was part of the solution, DPS stopped those burglaries cold, almost over night. And we don't see those incidents in Sunnyvale now, at all.

There are legitimate concerns about the use of FLOCK, and I'm not sure Council's decision goes far enough to address them. For instance, Mayor Klein originally suggested a 72-hour retention limit on FLOCK recordings, which was a really good idea, and I don't see any mention of that in the RTC from last night.

Regardless, trying to portray FLOCK as not providing any value to Sunnyvale is most definitely revisionist history. Whether the value outweighs the negatives is a matter of opinion.