Apache Junction officer resigns after using license plate reader to track his wife

Coverage spread: 4 sources — 4 unrated

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Where they agree

An Apache Junction police officer, Joshua McDaniel, resigned after an internal investigation found he used ALPR technology to track his wife.
He misused the system twice: having dispatchers run her plate under the guise of a welfare check, and personally using Flock cameras to find her in Casa Grande.
He would have been fired had he not resigned, and Casa Grande police independently alerted Apache Junction after he mentioned using the technology.
The case follows a similar Flock camera misuse controversy in Chandler about a week earlier, which led Chandler to end its Flock contract.

Where they differ

AZFamily broadens the story into a wider policy debate, quoting police procedure and forensic criminology experts and a privacy advocate (East Valley Unite) on national patterns of ALPR misuse.
ABC15 focuses closely on the internal investigation process, detailing how dispatchers and a separate agency escalated concerns through the chain of command.
FOX 10 emphasizes Chief Michael Pooley’s direct comments on accountability and department safeguards, including weekly audits, and includes EFF’s Dave Maass explaining the technical scope of data collected.
12 News runs brief wire-style items focused narrowly on confirming the resignation and cataloguing which Arizona cities use license plate readers, without added commentary or expert analysis.

An Apache Junction, Arizona police officer resigned after an internal investigation found he misused automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology to locate his wife. The officer, identified as Joshua McDaniel, would have been fired had he not quit; the case has become the second recent incident in the Phoenix area to raise questions about oversight of Flock license plate camera systems used by local police.

What did the officer actually do?

According to Apache Junction Police Chief Michael Pooley, McDaniel misused the department’s ALPR system in two separate ways while trying to find his wife. First, he asked two AJPD dispatchers to run her license plate, telling them it was for a welfare check. The dispatchers grew suspicious of the circumstances and alerted a supervisor, which set off the internal investigation. Second, McDaniel personally used the license plate reader system to track his wife’s vehicle to Casa Grande, Arizona. He then contacted the Casa Grande Police Department requesting a welfare check and, in that conversation, disclosed that he had used Apache Junction’s plate-reader technology to find her — which prompted Casa Grande police to alert AJPD independently.

What happened to the officer?

McDaniel had been with the department about a year and a half. He was placed on administrative leave when the investigation began and resigned this week — Monday, according to the department’s briefing — before termination proceedings were completed. Chief Pooley said McDaniel was dealing with unspecified personal issues, and that the department had tried to connect him with support services. Pooley said the resignation does not change the department’s responsibility to hold officers accountable: “We want our officers to know that if you use this type of technology in a way that it’s not meant for, you are going to be held responsible.”

How does this connect to the Chandler case?

This is the second Valley police agency in about a week to disclose Flock-related misuse. On August 7, Chandler Police Chief Bryan Chapman announced an internal investigation into potential misuse of the city’s Flock cameras by someone within the department; Chandler subsequently ended its contract with Flock Safety entirely following an internal audit. Apache Junction, by contrast, is keeping its system but says it audits ALPR use weekly to ensure officers follow policy.

How widespread is ALPR use in the Phoenix area?

Flock is one of the most widely used brands of automatic license plate readers, capturing vehicle details — plate number, make, model, color, and features like aftermarket rims or bumper stickers — into a searchable database that generates real-time alerts for law enforcement. Dave Maass of the Electronic Frontier Foundation described the scale of the data collection, noting the system lets officers search a plate and see essentially everywhere a vehicle has traveled over the past 30 days. Phoenix Police told Arizona’s Family it has not purchased any Flock products or services. Other Valley departments — including El Mirage, Glendale, Mesa, Peoria, Surprise, Paradise Valley, Tolleson, and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office — did not respond to questions about whether they currently use license plate readers.

What do experts say about balancing the technology’s risks and benefits?

Police procedure expert Dr. Roy Taylor called the cameras a genuinely useful investigative tool for solving crimes and finding missing people, but said departments need to be transparent with communities before deploying them and to install strict guardrails limiting use to investigative purposes, backed by regular audits. Forensic criminologist Dr. Ron Martinelli said better training of officers, technicians and third-party vendors — plus coordination with judges and prosecutors — is needed to keep the system trustworthy. Nathan Taylortaft of East Valley Unite said the Apache Junction and Chandler cases fit a pattern he’s tracked nationally, including officers using plate readers to track romantic partners or women who obtained abortions, as well as wrongful arrests stemming from misread plates.

Why this matters

The back-to-back disclosures in Chandler and Apache Junction have intensified a broader Arizona debate over how much oversight should accompany license plate reader technology, which many departments have adopted with little public scrutiny. Advocates argue the systems are valuable for solving crimes and locating missing people, while critics point to a growing list of documented misuse cases nationally and warn that mass surveillance capability creates risks of abuse. Whether other Arizona departments will follow Chandler in scaling back Flock use, or Apache Junction in adding audit safeguards while keeping the technology, remains an open question — several agencies contacted for comment declined to say whether they use license plate readers at all.

Sources

Featured photo: Marine 69-71 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)