Dunwoody Officer Used Flock Cameras To Track Cop’s Ex-Wife During Divorce
Records obtained via FOIA request reveal detectives pulled the maximum allotted data from Flock’s system to trace Patrick Krieg's ex-wife amidst divorce proceedings.
Records obtained via FOIA request reveal Dunwoody Police Officer Patrick Krieg initiated an investigation into his ex-wife, Kendra Krieg, while on the job for the city. A Dunwoody detective pulled the maximum allotted data from Flock’s system on Kendra’s vehicle amidst divorce proceedings. Not only has Patrick Krieg been one of Flock’s most vocal proponents in Dunwoody, he runs the city’s surveillance headquarters, dubbed the Real Time Crime Center (RTCC).
Records show that on December 10, 2023, a group of four Dunwoody police officers, including Patrick Krieg, initiated an investigation into Kendra’s vehicle, despite not reporting the activity as official police work until days later on December 14.
The investigation began when Patrick Kreig spotted Kendra’s vehicle, followed it, and flagged it as suspicious to fellow officers. According to officers’ statements in case records obtained via FOIA request, they opened an investigation despite Patrick Krieg describing the matter as a “personal issue” related to the couple’s “ongoing divorce.” The group explains they were all together that Sunday evening, and spontaneously encountered Kendra’s vehicle while working an “extra job.”
No existing laws prevent officers from searching family members in surveillance databases, however, Georgia’s Department of Public Safety Code of Ethics describes restrictions for law enforcement’s conduct in regard to conflicts of interest as follows:
Members shall make every effort to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. An appearance of conflict exists when a reasonable person would conclude from the circumstances that the member’s ability to protect the public interest, or perform public duties, is compromised by personal interests. An appearance of conflict could exist even in the absence of a true conflict of interest. (3.03.4A.1.a.)
Robert Frommer, attorney with the Institute of Justice (IJ), explains how easy it is for law enforcement officers to obtain information from Flock’s database, “license plate readers create a pervasive weeks-long log of every driver’s movements, one that officers can access without a warrant or other prior permission.” Frommer tells The Counterprogramming Club:
Unsurprisingly, when officials can act on their own say-so, abuses follow: The Institute for Justice has identified over a dozen cases of officers abusing ALPR systems to track their exes and romantic rivals. If a private party did that, it’d be considered stalking. That’s why IJ is fighting so that it’s the courts, not officials, who decide when and how these powerful technologies may be used.
Detective Haviland was one four officers present on the evening of December 10, 2023. He describes how the investigation began as follows:
LT Krieg, believed he saw a suspicious vehicle drive past the three of us. After the vehicle passed LT Krieg looked at SGT Fecht and asked if a white Palisade just drove by. LT Krieg then followed the vehicle to the intersection of Olde Perimeter Way and Perimeter Ctr W, then returned to briefly explain an personal issue.
Sergeant T. D. Fecht’s account:
On December 10th 2023 between 1630 and 2000 hours I, Sgt. Fecht, was working a city of Dunwoody approved extra job at 4510 Olde Perimeter Way with Detective Haviland and Lt. Krieg. During the event Lt. Krieg observed a white Hyundai Palisade they gave him concern. I observed the Palisade traveling south through the shopping center at Olde Perimeter Way which then turned left onto Perimeter Center West. The vehicle in question is owned by Kendra Krieg.
Detective Ehlbeck, who pulled the data on Kendra’s vehicle from Flock’s system, also wrote that Krieg disclosed the potential conflict of interest: “in speaking with Lt. Krieg, he advised me that he and his wife, Kendra Krieg are separated, going through the process of a divorce.”
The Counterprogramming Club requested comment from the Dunwoody police force, including Detective Ehlbeck. Instead, the City of Dunwoody Communications Director, Jennifer Boettcher sent a statement, describing the case as follows:
The Dunwoody Police Department took the initial report because the GPS device was discovered on the police vehicle within the City of Dunwoody. The case was assigned to Detective R. Ehlbeck, who conducted the initial investigation. Through investigative efforts, which included the use of LPR, Kendra Krieg was identified as the offender.
It turns out, the tracking device was not installed within the City of Dunwoody, so an investigation by local officers would be out of jurisdiction. City spokeswoman, Jennifer Boettcher explained to Counterprogramming that “once it was determined that the tracker had been installed in Cherokee County, Georgia, the case was transferred to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office, the agency with proper jurisdiction.” Kendra Krieg was charged with stalking in Cherokee County.
Detective Ehlbeck’s court testimony tells a different story than what the city spokeswoman describes. Ehlbeck revealed under oath that he didn’t use the Flock data to place Kendra at the scene:
Q: ..Did you do a Flock check on that area for that day?
A: Yes, I did. Flock only goes back for 30 days. It doesn’t keep data past that. I downloaded all the data for that 30-day period, which is a ton of license plate reads on the vehicle owned by Kendra Krieg.
Q: But as of now, you haven’t found her vehicle anywhere in the area on any of the days it was installed or removed, is that fair to say, as of today?
A: I didn’t look into that.
Q: Okay. That’s all I have. Thank you.
The key question here is not whether or not an investigation into Kendra Krieg was warranted, but rather how we address a growing divide between the general public and police force in the age of mass surveillance.
An officer can initiate an investigation and discover the whereabouts of a person over a 30-day period, while the same tracking by a private citizen is considered stalking. This case exemplifies how that double standard plays out in a police force that has fully embraced surveillance technology.
Patrick Krieg has been an outspoken supporter for Dunwoody’s use of Flock cameras, and on at least one occasion, cited Flock’s automated audits as an exceptional protection against misuse and “biased” searches. Krieg spoke at a City Council Meeting on February 23, 2026, appearing alongside Flock’s Public Affairs Manager Kerry McCormack. In his words:
We do an annual audit, we do it similar to the Georgia crime information center, so we do 10%. So we’ll pull our overall logs, we’ll pull 10%, we’ll adjust that to case numbers, cases associated, or identifiers and then look for anomalies also. This database is actually the only of many that we use in law enforcement for searching capacities that advises that there’s anomalies, that alerts us of bias, or things like that, outside of our audits. We honestly wish that all databases that we use would inform us that there was a potential concerning search. This is the only database that actually does that for us.
It’s entirely possible that by law enforcement standards, the actions of all officers in this case acted entirely above board. While the audit system may be acceptable to the law enforcement officer running the real-time crime center, is it acceptable to the public the cameras are deployed on? Mass surveillance systems like Flock’s have spread across the country faster than regulatory bodies can adequately assess risks.
The situation reveals an unsettling disparity between law enforcement officers and the general public, as IJ’s Frommer points out: “The Institute for Justice has identified over a dozen cases of officers abusing ALPR systems to track their exes and romantic rivals. If a private party did that, it’d be considered stalking.”
Whether or not Officer Krieg acted ethically is a matter for the Department of Public Safety and City of Dunwoody to determine. The rest of us will grapple with the reality that our society is being segmented into new groups of “haves” and have-nots”: those with access to surveillance data, and those without. This imbalance can be especially dangerous for those in personal relationships with those with access to vast surveillance networks like Flock’s.
The asymmetry of power between people with access to surveillance technology, and the rest of us, is a growing inequality that will increasingly define our modern era if present trends continue.
Everyone deserves relationships free from domestic violence. If you or someone you know is at risk, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 or text BEGIN to 88788.