Axon

Englewood City Council voted unanimously, 6-0, to terminate the city’s contract with Flock for automatic license plate reader cameras. City Attorney Tamara Niles said the city would have to pay a $27,500 annual service fee plus a $6,000 early camera removal fee, though police were trying to negotiate lower fees. Flock would remove the cameras, but no removal timeframe is in the contract. Mayor Othoniel Sierra cited concerns about how Flock shares data. A proposed replacement contract with Axon failed on a 3-3 vote.

Forbes published an investigation based on public records showing Axon’s Draft One and Form One AI police report tools generate errors: incorrect names, wrong officer locations, and hallucinated details. Officers in Lafayette, Indiana reported the tool increased report completion time, with one officer noting a 30-second form took three minutes to edit. The King County, Washington prosecutor’s office declined to accept AI-generated reports in 2024 because of hallucinations. Axon said the tools are in early access and officers retain control.

The Los Angeles Police Commission’s Inspector General publicly released a review of the LAPD’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) system. During a two-month review period ending September 30, 2025, cameras captured 210,568,103 license plate reads. Officers confirmed 161 ALPR alerts as accurate matches to scanned plates, but subsequent investigation determined the vehicles were not stolen. The report also found 337 alerts led to stolen vehicle recoveries, 68 alerts led to 74 arrests, and nine alerts resulted in pursuits. The OIG recommended suspending new ALPR camera deployments and new contracts pending public input and formal agreements with all vendors covering data security, privacy, access controls, retention, and auditing.

In May 2026 Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Herrod ruled that Senate Bill 1543, the Arizona law that removed Scottsdale voters’ ability to hold a referendum on Axon’s planned headquarters and housing project, is constitutional. A residents’ group, Taxpayers Against Awful Apartment Zoning Exemptions, had gathered enough signatures to put the rezoning on the ballot before the governor signed the bill. The law requires cities of 200,000 to 500,000 residents to allow hotel and multifamily housing on land zoned like the Axon parcel without a public hearing. Herrod wrote that the bill was clearly triggered by Axon’s zoning situation but, because it can apply in other cities, is not a special law. The group announced on June 1 that it would appeal. Scottsdale’s council voted 6-1 on September 12, 2025 to file a notice of claim against the state.

On March 31, 2026 the Denver City Council voted 7-6 to approve a one-year, $150,000 contract with Axon for 50 fixed license plate reader cameras, hours after Flock Safety finished removing its more than 100 cameras from city streets. The council president broke a 6-6 tie. Denver had ended its Flock contract after public backlash over privacy and revelations that the company could share data with federal immigration authorities. Opponents on the council argued the vote came before the city’s surveillance task force had written guardrails. Axon had severed its API integration with Flock on July 24, 2025. In July 2026 Douglas County approved a nearly $22.8 million Axon package replacing its 50 Flock cameras with 100 Axon Outpost cameras plus drones.

In a 4-3 vote, the Portland City Council rejected a $45,000 police drone program. The proposal would have used drones for missing person searches, standoffs, and crime scene reconstructions, with search warrants required for private property and no facial recognition. Residents cited privacy and cost concerns. Police can still borrow drones from neighboring departments. The proposal will be reconsidered in December.

Brooklyn Park City Council voted 5-0 to add $4.6 million to its Axon contract for a Drone as First Responder program. The 10-year contract total is now $12.4 million. The program includes 10 Skydio drones housed in five docking stations that self-dispatch to reported crimes. Footage will be deleted after three days, and a transparency portal will show deployments. Costs are covered until 2028.

On October 10, 2025 California’s governor signed Senate Bill 524, which requires police officers to disclose when generative AI tools such as Axon’s Draft One were used to write a report. The disclosure must appear at the bottom of each page of the report. Departments must preserve audit trails, including the original AI-generated draft and the body-camera footage or audio that informed it, so that judges, defense attorneys and auditors can see which portions were written by the officer and which by the software. The law bars vendors from selling or sharing the information agencies provide to the AI. It took effect January 1, 2026. By design, Draft One does not retain an edit log showing who wrote what.

On July 10, 2025 the Electronic Frontier Foundation published an investigation concluding that Axon’s Draft One, which drafts police reports from body-camera audio, is designed in a way that frustrates audits. Reviewing police reports, emails, procurement documents, department policies, software settings and Axon’s own manuals and marketing, EFF found it is often impossible to tell which parts of a report were generated by AI and which were written by an officer, because Draft One does not retain the initial AI-generated draft. Administrators cannot produce a list of all Draft One activity across a department; they can only inspect an individual officer’s audit log or a single evidence item. An Axon representative told one agency there is no filter for Draft One reports. The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, which requires a disclosure on each report, isolated more than 3,000 Draft One reports generated between December 2024 and March 2025.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation published a guide for journalists, advocates, and community members on obtaining records about Axon’s Draft One, an AI system that generates police report narratives from body-worn camera audio. The guide includes sample public records request language for reports, audit logs, settings, procurement documents, training materials, evaluations, and communications with Axon.

In July 2025, the district attorney’s office in King County, Washington, banned AI-generated police reports, citing ‘legitimate concerns about some of the products on the market now.’ The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s investigation found that Axon’s Draft One tool does not retain drafts or records of AI use, making reports difficult to audit. The EFF said the tool ‘seems deliberately designed to avoid audits that could provide any accountability to the public.’

The Syracuse Common Council withdrew three drone-related expenditures from its agenda on March 19, 2025, after the police department failed to provide a governing policy. The items included two Axon contract renewals for software on existing SWAT drones and a new drone-as-first-responder program with Axon. Councilors said the department did not answer detailed questions during a Public Safety Committee meeting. The council previously approved $250,000 in November for the drone program. The council removed the items without voting, citing a lack of transparency and information.

On February 27, 2025, the Savannah City Council considered authorizing the city manager to rescind the award for a Real-Time Crime Center Public Safety Platform from Fusus Corporation and re-award to Axon Enterprise, Inc. in an amount not to exceed $150,000. The original award to Fusus was made on July 27, 2023. Fusus was bought by Axon. The platform would unify Savannah Police Department data and operations, provide real-time access to over 1,000 cameras, integrate ALPRs, Flock, and Shotspotter applications, and create a voluntary community camera registry. The purchase is sole source from Axon.

In September 2024, the King County, Washington, prosecutor’s office said it would not accept police reports drafted with the help of AI, after local law enforcement agencies expressed interest in using Axon’s Draft One tool. The office said using the tool would “likely result in many of your officers approving Axon drafted narratives with unintentional errors in them,” according to an email to police chiefs. Axon said it is committed to collaboration with police agencies, prosecutors, and other stakeholders to guide the responsible evolution of Draft One.

In September 2024, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in Washington told police chiefs it would not accept police narratives produced with the assistance of generative AI, including Axon’s Draft One and ChatGPT. Chief Deputy Prosecutor Daniel J. Clark wrote that reports written with AI assistance would be rejected because of the possibility of errors, citing one otherwise excellent report that referred to an officer who was not at the scene. The memo said such products were generally not compliant with Criminal Justice Information Services requirements for now. The office said it expected AI would eventually assist prosecutors in time-saving ways but was not ready to accept AI-assisted reports.

On May 28, 2024, Axon told Lafayette, Indiana police that Draft One AI reports would include a disclosure header by default, but that it could be easily turned off. Emails obtained via public records request show the department then disabled the disclosure, making it impossible to independently identify AI-written reports. Axon’s software also does not track which portions of reports were AI-generated. Captain Brian Gossard wrote in July 2024 that he could “almost guarantee” AI reports have been used in plea deals.

The municipality of Augusta, Maine, filed a proposed class action against Axon Enterprise Inc. in US District Court for the District of New Jersey on Oct. 5, 2023. The complaint alleges that Axon’s dominance in the market for long-range conducted energy weapons and body-worn camera systems allowed it to charge higher prices. The lawsuit claims the police department paid inflated prices for Tasers and body cameras.

On April 14, 2023 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Axon could bring its constitutional challenge to the Federal Trade Commission’s structure in federal district court rather than first going through the FTC’s own administrative process. The dispute began after Axon acquired rival body-camera maker Vievu in 2018. The FTC began an antitrust investigation into the acquisition. Axon sued, arguing the proceeding violated its due-process rights and that the FTC’s structure improperly insulated it from the president. A district court had dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds. On October 9, 2023 the FTC dismissed its antitrust complaint against Axon.

Albany County, Wyoming, reached a $1.2 million settlement with the family of Robbie Ramirez, who was fatally shot by Deputy Derek Colling in November 2018. The settlement, dated May 2, 2022, came amid allegations that body and dash camera footage was tampered with. Original videos were deleted by a sheriff’s lieutenant in December 2019, violating a five-year records-retention policy. As part of the settlement, a judge issued an order stating there was no legal basis for evidence tampering.

On December 22, 2021, New Hanover County Chief Financial Officer Lisa Wurtzbacher told commissioners that the sole-source contract with Flock Safety for license plate recognition cameras would not proceed. The county had approved the award on December 6, but later learned that Axon had a minority investment in Flock and that other vendors could integrate with Axon’s evidence.com. Wurtzbacher said the county would ‘change direction with this sole source contract and, instead, pursue bidding this service out.’ The contract was never signed.

In July 2021, Sam Aguiar, an attorney for Breonna Taylor’s family, filed a lawsuit against the Louisville Metro Police Department. The suit alleges that LMPD may have withheld body-camera footage from the night Taylor was killed on March 13, 2020, and that authorities may have presented misinformation about the existence of such footage. The lawsuit states officers were issued Axon body cameras programmed to activate automatically, and requests release of body-camera information under Kentucky’s public records law. The article notes Louisville had agreed to a $12 million settlement with Taylor’s family in 2020.

The New York Police Department recalled nearly 3,000 Vievu LE-5 body cameras after one exploded on a Staten Island officer. Deputy Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the department would stop deploying the model, citing officer safety. The recall came two years into a $6.4 million contract with Axon, the device maker’s parent company. The NYPD hired an independent forensics investigator and explored replacement options, including the LE-4 and Axon Body Camera 2.