New Bedford Officer Pacheco Ran 497 Flock Queries After April Breakup

Pacheco was served an abuse prevention order on August 12 after her ex-girlfriend filed an affidavit alleging stalking via Flock queries, unannounced visits, and repeated calls from spoofed numbers. The court suspended her license to carry and ordered firearm surrender. Chief Jason Thody placed one officer on administrative leave and halted Flock access hours after The New Bedford Light requested records on the alleged misuse. Department policy and the signed MOU prohibit personal or harassing queries, with penalties including termination and civil liability. Pacheco ranked among the top Flock users this year. April searches totaled 18, rising to 259 in May and 220 in June, with most tagged “traffic infraction” despite query windows spanning one day to over a week. The city withheld plate numbers and vehicle descriptors from released logs. New Bedford’s 20 cameras feed a regional network spanning Dartmouth and Fairhaven, enabling cross-jurisdictional lookups without documented probable cause. Nationwide Flock Safety deployments have recorded repeated officer misuse for tracking former partners, documented in 2023-2024 civil complaints in Virginia and California. The New Bedford case aligns with patterns where high-volume “traffic” searches mask non-investigatory surveillance. Operational risk now centers on retention of scan data across shared networks and absence of query-audit trails before access revocation. The department’s ongoing review of all prior Flock sessions will determine whether additional officers accessed the system for non-official purposes. If logs confirm unauthorized plate runs exceeding departmental thresholds, the Massachusetts POST Commission may open a separate certification review within 60 days.