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AI incident ·

Kechi, Kansas Police Lieutenant Victor Heiar Used Flock Safety License-Plate Reader System to Monitor Estranged Wife

6 news reports Synced from source · record last edited 16 Sep 2026

In brief

An AI system built by Surveillance technology developers, Flock Safety and 1 other and deployed by Wichita Police Department (Kansas), Victor Heiar and 3 others allegedly harmed Women and girls, Women and 3 others.

Risk domain
Not classified
Occurred
Coverage
6 reportsOct 2022 - Aug 2026

What happened

Kechi, Kansas police lieutenant Victor Heiar used Wichita police's Flock Safety license-plate reader system to search his estranged wife's plate and review her movements over the prior month. An arrest affidavit said Heiar acknowledged knowing the use was improper; his wife said she felt violated and unsafe. He later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor stalking and computer crime and received 18 months' probation.

Editor's notes

(1) 10/23/2022: date of documented Flock misuse; (2) 10/26/2022: Heiar arrested and Kechi Police Department's access to Wichita's Flock database revoked; (3) 04/05/2023: pleaded guilty to misdemeanor stalking and computer crime and received 18 months' probation; (4) 08/2023: Kansas revoked his law-enforcement certification. (5) 09/16/2026 incident ID created.

Laws that address this harm

No recorded instrument yet addresses this use case where it happened. See the open queue.

Matched from the record's risk domain and country to the instruments recorded here. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).

News reports (6)

Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.

  1. Kechi police lieutenant arrested for using police technology to stalk wife
    kwch.com · Joe Baker
  2. Wichita moves to tighten access, increase oversight on secretive police surveillance program
    kansas.com · Chance Swaim
  3. Former Kechi police lieutenant convicted on stalking charges
    kwch.com · KWCH Staff
  4. A former police officer has been sentenced in Sedgwick County District Court
    sedgwickcounty.org · Dan Dillon
  5. ‘You were spotted’: KS officer who used police cameras to stalk estranged wife sentenced
    kansas.com · Michael Stavola
  6. How rogue officers turned a nationwide camera network into a tool for stalking
    washingtonpost.com · Drew Harwell, Douglas MacMillan, Aaron Schaffer

Who was involved

Alleged harmed party
Women and girls Women Victor Heiar's estranged wife Privacy Individuals whose license plate data were accessed for non-law-enforcement purposes

AI systems implicated

Surveillance technologyFlock Safety automated license plate reader systemAutomated license plate reader (ALPR) developers

Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)

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Intent
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Linked by editors or by text similarity in the source dataset.

Source record: incident #1690 on the AI Incident Database · all 6 reports