An Atlanta man spent 30 days in Fulton County Jail after license-plate reader data helped link him to a road-rage shooting he did not commit. The case has renewed scrutiny of the same surveillance technology Sandy Springs Police rely on across roughly 400 cameras citywide.

Ladavius McNair, an Army veteran who was pursuing his doctorate at Clark Atlanta University when he was arrested, was taken into custody in 2024 for a shooting that occurred the previous year. The charges were dismissed with prejudice, meaning they cannot be refiled. McNair has since earned his doctorate.

He has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Atlanta, its police chief and the lead detective, 11Alive first reported Saturday, Sept. 26.

His attorney, Marsha Mignott, told 11Alive that investigators relied too heavily on surveillance data that identified a vehicle but not the driver. According to an officer's narrative in the case, the victim described the suspect's vehicle as a gray or silver four-door sedan, possibly an Infiniti or a Genesis. Mignott said McNair drove an Infiniti SUV, not a sedan.

"It's not an actual driver that they can see," Mignott told 11Alive. "They don't know who's operating the vehicle. They just know that that vehicle was in the particular area."

Mignott also said McNair was attending class at Clark Atlanta University at the time of the shooting and that his professor and classmates could place him there.

The case lands as Sandy Springs faces its own questions about plate-reader oversight. The city operates about 400 Flock Safety cameras that run around the clock and spent more than $400,000 on Flock contracts in 2024, according to Appen Media reporting. Sandy Springs Police Maj. Mike Lindstrom confirmed the camera count to the City Council in June.

No Sandy Springs officials had publicly responded as of our Sept. 24 report to a bipartisan push from U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock and Katie Britt. The senators on Monday, Sept. 21, asked the Department of Justice to issue federal guidelines for how police use automatic license plate readers. The DOJ has until Oct. 21 to respond.

Their letter cited at least 20 Georgia law enforcement officers arrested for abusing plate-reader access. Nationwide, at least 50 officers have been charged with or accused of unauthorized searches, and at least 30 of those cases involved stalking current, former or prospective romantic partners.

Sandy Springs has its own history of misuse. A police officer resigned in August 2025 amid an internal affairs investigation that found he had searched the city's Flock system to help develop a private commercial data platform, WIRED reported. The department classified his departure as a termination.

In Hall County, seven employees left or were fired from the sheriff's office after an audit of Flock searches concluded Sept. 4. The audit reviewed 758 searches and flagged 85 as suspicious. Sheriff Gerald Couch then cut the number of authorized Flock users from 124 to 24.

State Sen. John Albers, a Roswell Republican who chairs the Georgia Senate Public Safety Committee, joined a task force exploring whether new state legislation is needed to govern Flock camera use. A Senate Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing Wednesday, Sept. 23, titled "Always Watching: Flock's Nationwide AI Surveillance Network." Flock CEO Garrett Langley declined to testify.

Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based company behind the cameras, announced new privacy measures in mid-August, including reducing its recommended data retention period from 30 days to seven days and letting cities control which offense types outside agencies can search.