- Reports circulated that in May 2025, a Texas sheriff’s deputy searched a data pool of more than 83,000 license plate-scanning cameras made by surveillance tech company Flock Safety to find a woman whose partner alleged she performed a self-administered abortion. Public records confirm the officer did conduct such a search.
- We left this claim unrated because evidence for what motivated the search is mixed. While the deputy reportedly said he was attempting to locate the woman and her children to “check their welfare” (as he believed she may have been hurt by her partner), the investigation was, at that time, characterized as a “death investigation of a non-viable fetus” and the listed reason for the search was “had an abortion, search for female.”
- Officers who arrived at the residence treated it as a potential crime scene, placing what the woman’s partner told them was the frozen fetus in a “small body bag” and contacting the district attorney’s office to ask whether the woman could be charged and “a civil lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company that supplied the pill” could be filed.
- It wasn’t until five days after the death investigation was opened that the woman told authorities her side of the story and an aggravated assault case was opened against her partner. She told officers she ran from home, taking her child with her, after he threatened to kill her.
- Even if the woman performed an abortion on herself, Texas’ anti-abortion penalties rarely apply to the person receiving the abortion.
- Flock has faced increasing scrutiny over its broad-reaching surveillance, which critics say infringes on personal privacy.
In July 2026, a claim resurfaced online that in May 2025, law enforcement officials in Texas used the data from 83,000 license plate identification cameras across multiple states to track down a Texas woman who allegedly performed an abortion on herself.
The claim spread across several social media platforms, including Facebook (archived), X and Reddit. This example was posted on Facebook:
(Facebook user Feminist News)
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned landmark abortion ruling Roe v. Wade in 2022, it became almost entirely illegal to have an abortion in Texas, though penalties rarely apply to the person receiving the abortion. The story above emerged amid growing concerns over police misuse of surveillance systems — including, reportedly, to stalk romantic interests.
We looked into the claim and found publicly available records confirm a Texas sheriff’s deputy searched data across thousands of camera networks comprising more than 83,000 cameras made by Flock Safety, a company that uses automated license plate readers to identify cars.
According to an internal sheriff’s office incident report obtained by Snopes, the officer who made the search said he was concerned for the woman’s welfare. “I began to believe the victim may have been hurt by [her partner] due to the call and it not making sense,” he wrote. “I wanted to use resources available to help find where the victim and her children could be to make sure they were okay.”
Below, we analyze available evidence to understand how an officer used Flock data to track down a woman who went through a violent experience — and why.
Timeline of events
Incident reports and other documents reviewed by Snopes laid out a timeline of what occurred:
- April 23, 2025: The woman left her residence after her partner allegedly assaulted her. The man later told authorities he confronted her after finding what he thought was evidence of an abortion, saying an argument led to her leaving with their son and not coming back. The evidence included packaging for an
abortion pill and what he thought was an aborted fetus, which he then stored in his freezer. - May 8, 2025: According to the man, he made contact with his lawyer, who advised him to report the incident.
- May 9, 2025: The man contacted the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, reporting an “abortion incident involving his girlfriend.” Deputies arrived and put up crime-scene tape, took photographs, collected the “fetus” for evidence and sent officers to attempt to contact the woman for a welfare check. They opened a “death investigation of a non-viable fetus” and reportedly contacted the district attorney’s office to ask whether the woman could be charged. At this time, a deputy submitted the Flock search for her license plate number, reportedly because he was worried her partner may have hurt her, as the man’s story was not making sense.
- May 14, 2025: The woman arrived at the sheriff’s office to report the alleged assault. Authorities opened an assault case against her partner, who public records show had previously been convicted of aggravated robbery.
- May 22, 2025: The lead detective signed a warrant for the man’s arrest.
- June 11, 2025: A medical examiner determined the “fetus” was a blood clot. A few hours later, the lead detective officially recommended the case be changed to “cleared by exception” for that reason.
Officer searched data from more than 83K cameras
According to data Snopes reviewed from MuckRock — a nonprofit, collaborative tool that allows users to share records acquired through the Freedom of Information Act — the Flock search log indicated that on May 9, 2025, a Johnson County deputy named “J. Smith” searched 6,809 camera networks, totaling 83,345 cameras, between April 9, 2025, and May 9, 2025, for “Case #2500002320.” The officer listed the reason as: “had an abortion, search for female.”
(MuckRock.com)
In an internal incident report from January 2026, the officers involved gave their accounts of the situation. The officer who submitted the Flock search, J. Smith, used a “TLO” (most likely “TransUnion Locator Services” — a massive investigative data platform law enforcement officers often use to find background information on people) to find the color and make of the woman’s car as well as the license plate number.
“I entered the vehicle into FLOCK to see if we could see where the victim and her children might be at due to multiple different locations being given for the victim and her children,” the deputy wrote in the report. “Deputies had attempted to try and contact the female, but were unsuccessful. The FLOCK hit showed the victim had been in Dallas prior but nothing recent.”
What motivated the Flock data search?
News media outlet 404 Media originally reported on the search data, which digital rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation characterized as an “abortion investigation.”
It’s important to note that the internal report was dated Jan. 30, 2026 — more than eight months after the incident. Until the internal report emerged, there was no documented, primary evidence the officers were concerned for the woman’s safety.
According to the internal report, the deputy who submitted the search was not present at the home but rather “just was assisting with trying to locate the victim and her children to check their welfare.” The deputy wrote:
I began to believe the victim may have been hurt by the RP [reporting person] due to the call and it not making sense.
The RP who was in a relationship with the victim didn’t know anything about the victim which also wasn’t making sense of where she could have been with the children.
I wanted to use resources available to help find where the victim and her children could be to make sure they were okay.
A detective at the home also reportedly told the man he “did not understand why it took him over two weeks to process what happened or contact his family attorney,” then sent officers in nearby cities to look for the woman at various addresses “for a welfare check.”
Johnson County Sheriff Adam King told 404 Media that “her family was worried that she was going to bleed to death, and we were trying to find her to get her to a hospital.” The incident had occurred more than two weeks before the sheriff’s office got involved.
As part of the death investigation, officers photographed and placed a stainless steel tumbler containing what the woman’s partner told them was the fetus in “a small body bag.” While at the home on May 9, they treated the area as a potential crime scene, including filling out a crime-scene log and putting up crime-scene tape.
Deputies at the home also discussed options for criminal charges related to the alleged abortion, according to the report. It read:
Deputies discussed the legal implications of the situation, noting that while the girlfriend self-administered the abortion pill, there were no criminal charges applicable under current Texas law.
CSI and CID collected all relevant evidence, including photographs and printed materials provided by [the woman’s partner].
Deputies also considered the possibility of a civil lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company that supplied the pill.
According to the arrest warrant affidavit for the man, as well as the internal police report, deputies contacted the district attorney’s office on May 9 to ask whether the woman could be charged. They were informed that the state “could not statutorily charge the abortion or miscarriage of the non-viable fetus.”
When the woman arrived at the station on May 14, the lead detective “was initially under the impression [she] came to the Sheriffs Office to tell her side of the story about the non-viable fetus,” according to the arrest warrant affidavit. The internal report read:
Detective Miller started out the interview with [the woman] by explaining the State would not be statutorily charging her with anything at this time so if she came to report [her partner] assaulting her because she learned he called the Sheriff’s Office about the non-viable fetus trying to get her in trouble, there was no need.
What were the legal implications?
After a medical examiner determined the blood tissue deputies originally thought was a fetus was, in fact, a blood clot, according to the internal report, the lead detective on the death investigation wrote on June 11:
Disposition recommend case be changed to cleared by exception due to the tissue collected on May 9th, 2025, from [the woman’s partner], being that of a blood clot and not a viable fetus.
This death investigation is linked to JCSO case number 25-00002423.
Please refer to that case for further information.
According to the FBI, “cleared by exception” means that “elements beyond law enforcement’s control prevent the agency from arresting and formally charging the offender.”
It’s unclear how the investigation would have proceeded had the blood clot been a fetus. The initial case opened by the sheriff’s office did not name abortion as a criminal offense; rather, it was a death investigation — a routine action following deaths that take place outside of hospitals and similar settings.
Investigating why a pregnancy loss occurred is medical in nature — an investigation to determine what caused fetal death. However, in many states, law enforcement has investigated pregnancy loss as a criminal case. In April 2025, for example, a Georgia woman was arrested after a miscarriage when a witness claimed she placed the fetal remains in a dumpster.
According to the nonprofit Pregnancy Justice, Texas has fetal personhood language applicable to criminal law.
Flock’s inconsistent messaging
A spokesperson for Flock told Snopes via email that “the woman was reportedly being searched for as a missing person in what appears to have been a domestic violence case, not as a suspect.”
This is not entirely correct. When the officer conducted the Flock search on May 9, the investigation was, at that point, officially characterized as a “death investigation of a non-viable fetus” — not a domestic violence case — even though the investigators’ reports compiled later did express concern for the woman’s well-being. We also found no evidence a missing person report had been filed.
Flock has also been inconsistent in its messaging. On June 19, 2025, the company released a statement (archived) ostensibly correcting what it called a “Women’s Healthcare Falsehood” that did not mention domestic violence.
The company claimed a “family called to ask for help” because they “feared she was hurt.” There is no evidence of this in the documents reviewed by Snopes; the official record indicates the woman’s partner — who later was charged with assaulting the woman — called authorities to report “an abortion incident involving his girlfriend” that occurred weeks earlier.
Although it’s true no charges were filed against the woman, the search was performed as part of a death investigation and authorities listed both the woman and her partner as subjects in the investigation.
Access to Flock data raises privacy concerns
A Texas deputy did use Flock data from a network of more than 83,000 cameras to find a woman her partner told authorities had performed an abortion on herself.
While an internal report says the deputy claimed to have performed the Flock search out of concern for the woman’s welfare, this does not detract from the fact that, regardless of an individual officer’s intentions, law enforcement officials have unprecedented ability to track civilians without a warrant because of Flock’s vast network of surveillance cameras.
DeFlock, a site used to track such cameras with a crowdsourced map, estimates that, as of this writing, there are 120,114 cameras in view across the U.S. — approximately 99,694 of which are Flock cameras.
Flock has marketed itself to local law enforcement agencies as a modern solution to fight crime across jurisdictional lines with 24/7 coverage, providing police departments with “indiscriminate evidence from fixed locations.”
“When people ask whether police officers can misuse Flock systems, the honest answer is simple: Yes. And when they do, they should be held accountable,” a Flock blog post from May 2025 read.
In the case of this police officer scanning a data pool of more than 83,000 cameras to find one woman, many details remain difficult to review and were made transparent only through the findings of records requests made by civilians and journalists.
The University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights has documented multiple instances of federal collaboration with local Flock client agencies, leaving much unknown when it comes to how civilians could be tracked across the state lines for the purpose of criminalizing women who receive abortions or otherwise.
Although the woman in Texas wasn’t charged for anything related to an abortion, she was the subject of a death investigation and the case was “cleared by exception” only after a medical examiner determined the alleged fetus was a blood clot. Court records show her partner, as of this writing, awaits trial on one count of aggravated assault and one count of family-violence assault.
