What actually happened
- Jun 13I asked Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety for their Flock camera records. Contracts, camera inventory, and the search logs.
- Jul 8Denied. The logs were "not held in the regular course of business," and the City was "not obligated to create a new record or compilation."
- Jul 8I appealed the same night.
- Jul 22They sent 116,017 searches. Every column populated.
The file names gave it away.
1_1_2026-1_31_2026-Kalamazoo MI PD-Network-Audit.csv
2_1_2026-2_28_2026-Kalamazoo MI PD-Network-Audit.csv
3_1_2026-3_31_2026-Kalamazoo MI PD-Network-Audit.csv
Monthly exports, one per agency, running straight through June. Nobody built those for me. They were sitting on a server the whole time, which is roughly the opposite of a record that has to be created.
Inside: 74,448 searches run by the Michigan State Police on cameras the city of Kalamazoo paid for. That is three times what Kalamazoo's own police department ran. Grand Rapids officers running immigration searches through Kalamazoo's network. A median of 1,185 camera networks touched per query. One search logged for a littering complaint.
Then people started asking me the same question, over and over. What did you write. What exactly did you send them.
So I'm writing it down.
Get the pack
Tell me your state and I'll build that one next
Nothing to buy right now. I'll email you when the Michigan pack is done and tell you what it costs, if it costs anything. Unsubscribe link in every email.
Who this is for
Somebody in your town put up cameras that photograph every car that drives past and keep the pictures. Maybe the council voted on it, maybe they didn't. Either way there is a log of every search anyone ran, and in most states you are allowed to see it.
You don't need a lawyer, a press badge, or a reason. In Michigan I paid nothing for the Kalamazoo records. The hard part is knowing what to ask for, in what words, and what to do when they say no.
That's the part I'm handing over.
The boring but important part
This is general information about filing public records requests. It is not legal advice. I'm not a lawyer. Reading this page, joining this list, or using anything I send you does not create an attorney-client relationship with me or with Central Ventures LLC. Records law varies by state and changes. If a denial turns into a lawsuit, talk to an actual attorney in your state.
No promises about outcomes. Agencies deny requests. Some of mine got denied and stayed denied. What I can give you is the paperwork that worked here and the reasoning behind it.
On AI. I use it to sort and search records, and to help me write. Every number on this page came out of a file Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety handed over under FOIA #P022224-061526.
Your email. Goes on my list, gets you the pack and updates on the records work. It doesn't get sold or handed to anybody. Leave any time.