SPARTANBURG, S.C. — A Flock license plate reader on Fernwood Glendale Road was destroyed Monday night, and Spartanburg police are looking for the man officers saw carrying away part of it.
The camera stopped sending data at 8:42 p.m. Minutes earlier, around 8:41, firefighters working nearby noticed a man heading on foot from East Main Street in the camera’s direction. Police got a suspicious-person call and arrived near Gable Court at about 8:50.
Officers spotted a man holding a long black pole, which they identified as a section of the Flock mount. When they moved to stop him, he took off and got away. Back at the site, only a stub of roughly three inches stuck out of the ground. The camera unit itself turned up in the roadway, and its solar panel had been broken.
Monday’s damage adds to a string of attacks on the plate readers around Spartanburg. City police said in late September that two other Flock units had been damaged. In the Boiling Springs area, the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office counted eight cameras knocked over or broken during a single month.
Each loss carries a price tag. Flock Safety estimates that replacing a camera lost to vandalism or theft runs anywhere from $350 to $5,000.
