MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Hundreds of people gathered near U.S. Bank Stadium Friday night and rode scooters and e-bikes through downtown Minneapolis in a protest against Flock Safety surveillance cameras, the third such gathering this month organized by Johan Vargas, who used the attention from two earlier viral rides to call people out for this one.
Vargas, 20, organized two prior scooter takeovers this month that drew hundreds and, in one case, thousands of riders through downtown streets, with some entering Interstate 35W during an Aug. 8 event, as the Daily Planet previously reported. Vargas addressed Friday’s crowd in person before it set off through downtown.
This time, Vargas asked attendees to wear costumes, make signs and stay peaceful, framing the gathering explicitly as a protest against Flock’s license plate-reading cameras rather than a purely social ride.
The protest targets a company whose automatic license plate readers have expanded rapidly across the country in recent years. Critics have raised concerns about Flock’s national “lookup” feature, which allows Flock employees to access camera data across its network without notifying or seeking permission from individual municipalities.
The system has also drawn scrutiny over reports of misuse, including cases where police officers allegedly used the technology to stalk people and instances of cameras misidentifying stolen vehicles.
Lime, the scooter company whose rentals have fueled the takeovers, appeared to slow scooters for some riders during Friday’s protest, part of a broader response that includes new slow- and no-ride zones and highway access restrictions following last week’s I-35W incident.
Friday’s turnout adds to a broader statewide reckoning over Flock’s cameras. In recent weeks, multiple Minnesota communities, including North Branch, West St. Paul, Columbia Heights and Sherburne County, have paused or ended their Flock contracts, citing concerns over privacy and government overreach. North Branch City Council voted unanimously to remove its cameras indefinitely, with Mayor Kevin Schieber citing “government overreach” concerns ahead of the vote.
The Minneapolis Police Department has stated the city itself does not use Flock cameras, though privacy advocates note that surveillance devices from Flock and other vendors remain deployed across the metro by other public agencies, universities and private businesses.
The protest also follows a wider, more confrontational strain of anti-Flock activity nationally. A masked Minneapolis figure who goes by “Nomark,” previously profiled by the Daily Planet as a self-described civic watchman, has appeared in online video dismantling a Flock camera alongside Vargas. In a separate interview with WCCO, the person behind the “Nomark” account said he has damaged Flock cameras because he considers them an invasion of privacy, adding that police know his identity and that he has been arrested in the past.
Vargas has said his gatherings are meant to bring people together rather than provoke confrontation.
“A lot of people on the outside see the news and they’re like this is reckless, a bunch of kids just being stupid,” Vargas said. “I don’t think they see the good in it.”
He said the pattern behind the growing turnout has less to do with any single organizer and more to do with the platform itself.
“There’s not really regulars; it’s new faces every time because more and more people have FOMO,” Vargas told the Daily Planet.
