A Texas Cop Used 83k Cameras to Hunt an Abortion Seeker

Friday, June 20, 2025

After the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade, states were given sweeping authority to ban and even criminalize abortion. In Texas -- where the officer who conducted this search is based -- abortion is now almost entirely banned. But in Washington and Illinois, where many of the searched Flock cameras are located, abortion remains legal and protected as a fundamental right up to fetal viability.

Posted by GalaxiePete at 12:33 PM | 38 COMMENTS | permalink | Comment on This Entry |

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A Texas sheriff used 83,000+ license plate reader cameras to track a woman "suspected of having an abortion." The reason listed in the record: "had an abortion, search for female."

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-- Electronic Frontier Foundation (@eff.org) Jun 1, 2025 at 12:06 PM

Comments

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That's a great use of taxpayer resources ignoring states rights.

#1 | Posted by Nixon at 2025-06-18 12:57 PM | Reply

I am just against the surveillance state period but this? Wow. I know the city I work in does use LPRs. They are using it as a way to find and track suspects in violent crimes and drug trafficking or so they claim. I don't necessarily disagree with using them in that way as the city has a high crime rate and has forever. The problem is that isn't all they use them for as this EFF article pointed out. Witch Hunts on a suspicion.

I did a binge on John H Bryan's ("The Civil Rights Lawyer") youtube streams recently. I did nothing but lose more respect for the police forces of the US. Honestly, I love listening to Steve Lehto's legal streams as well - kind of the same thing though when it comes to public servants. WTH are our police and officials thinking?

#2 | Posted by GalaxiePete at 2025-06-18 01:54 PM | Reply

So, hero cop uses camera footage to catch a child killer - got it. Way to go hero cop!

#3 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-06-18 06:53 PM | Reply

Abortion does not kill children you hyperventilating hyperbolic moron.

#4 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-06-18 06:58 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 6

"Abortion does not kill children you hyperventilating hyperbolic moron.
#4 | Posted by donnerboy"

Maybe not in bizarro world - but, that is the desired intent of an abortion.

#5 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-06-18 07:08 PM | Reply

So, hero cop uses camera footage to catch a child killer - got it. Way to go hero cop!
#3 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-06-18 06:53 PM

Did it hurt when you fell from heaven, because you are totally f'ed.

#6 | Posted by redlightrobot at 2025-06-18 07:27 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 2

GED ScottSy is the type of person who refrains from ------------ because every sperm is sacred.

It's also why he so angry all the time, like most incels.

#7 | Posted by ClownShack at 2025-06-18 07:30 PM | Reply | Funny: 1 | Newsworthy 1

#3 | Posted by ScottS

The search was about safety not a killer.

Anti-abortion voices love to argue that they're not trying to control women, they're trying to protect women. Funnily enough this same talking point came up in this case. Sheriff Adam King of Johnson county, Texas, told 404 Media that the woman had self-administered the abortion "and her family was worried that she was going to bleed to death, and we were trying to find her to get her to a hospital." He added: "We weren't trying to block her from leaving the state or whatever to get an abortion. It was about her safety." (emphasis added)

drudge.com

#8 | Posted by et_al at 2025-06-18 07:46 PM | Reply

#9 | Posted by et_al at 2025-06-18 07:47 PM | Reply

That was BOLD move!

#10 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-06-18 07:50 PM | Reply

Yeah, I thought I turned it off. Try again.

#11 | Posted by et_al at 2025-06-18 07:58 PM | Reply

"#7 | Posted by ClownShack"

When does a human life start? Now, you will never have to worry about this problem because, you, like 90% of the male liberal posters on this site are a militant homosexual. So, unless 'ass babies' become a real thing, you will never have children (thankfully).

#12 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-06-18 08:00 PM | Reply

#8 | Posted by et_al

He added? You left out "with a wink and a nudge he added". Why did he search out of state databasest if what the sheriff stated was true? I mean the police never lie...

#13 | Posted by GalaxiePete at 2025-06-19 04:50 PM | Reply

#12 | Posted by ScottS

How about when a live child is born. But that's when the right wing anti-abortion crowd quit caring about it and its mother.

Until a human fetus is viable, meaning it can exist on its own outside of the womb, it simply can't be considered a child.

#14 | Posted by GalaxiePete at 2025-06-19 04:56 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 3

Abortion does not stop a thinking brain, it does not kill a soul

#15 | Posted by hamburglar at 2025-06-19 05:26 PM | Reply

"#14 | Posted by GalaxiePete"

So you are good with abortion up to the point of popping out of the birth canal? And you want to question the morality of the GOP?

#16 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-06-19 08:04 PM | Reply

If you'll notice, Texas isn't arresting anyone returning from Las Vegas for gambling.

Nothing like double-standards to reveal the weakness of your standards.

#17 | Posted by Danforth at 2025-06-20 01:12 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

This is the second time this story has been on the main page. I know the left likes to recycle but ---- lol

#18 | Posted by Bluewaffles at 2025-06-20 01:18 PM | Reply

So you are good with abortion up to the point of popping out of the birth canal?

Yep.

There's too much nuance to this topic for a moron like you to understand. So I won't waste my time.

you want to question the morality of the GOP?
#16 | POSTED BY SCOTTS

There's no question about it. They've got none. You've got none.

Get Grok to explain it to you.

#19 | Posted by ClownShack at 2025-06-20 02:16 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 2

#12 | Posted by ScottS

Why does GRINR usage spike when a republican convention is in town?

#20 | Posted by SpeakSoftly at 2025-06-20 02:28 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 3

ScottS sounds like a closet case. All the hateful POS's are

#21 | Posted by hamburglar at 2025-06-20 05:19 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

= a militant homosexual

I would guess Stephen Miller... for sure. Am I close? Mao Tse Dung?

"Ernst Rhm, The Highest-Ranking Gay Nazi

Ernst Rhm, the highest-ranking gay Nazi, presents an interesting study in the construction and containment of masculinity by the right.

A man in make-up and pearls condemning transgender people may seem counterintuitive, but Milo Yiannopoulos is hardly the first gay reactionary.

The case of Ernst Rhm, the highest-ranking gay Nazi, presents an interesting study in the construction and containment of masculinity by the right.

Rhm was Hitler's right-hand man as head of the Sturmabteilung (SA, the Brownshirts), the Nazi paramilitary wing.

Instrumental in the rise of the party via the street-fighting and extra-judicial murders of the late 1920s and early 1930s, Rhm's sexual orientation was no secret after the mid-1920s. Hitler either ignored it or said it was immaterial, depending on who he was talking to, including other Nazis."

daily.jstor.org

#22 | Posted by Corky at 2025-06-20 05:34 PM | Reply

"Even before Ernst Rhm was murdered, the Nazis had begun cracking down on homosexuality, banning organizations, burning books, and arresting the first of some 100,000.

Around 15,000 gay people were sent to concentration camps, where some were experimented upon in bizarre efforts to find a "cure" for sexual orientation, a foreshadowing of American psychological and later fundamentalist efforts to try the same thing."

from the above link

#23 | Posted by Corky at 2025-06-20 05:54 PM | Reply

#12 | Posted by ScottS

Good point
Why do gays so opinionated ? ?

#24 | Posted by twinkhunter at 2025-06-20 08:12 PM | Reply

American psychological and later fundamentalist efforts to try the same thing."
Posted by Corky

Dr. John Money

#25 | Posted by twinkhunter at 2025-06-20 08:18 PM | Reply

The thing that keeps getting left out of this intentionaly misleading story is that the woman did not simply "get an abortion", prompting an investigation. She did a DIY abortion without medical supervision (because it is illegal in TX) and then disappeared for an entire month. Her family and friends called police because they were concerned she may have experienced complications or be in medical distress. She met the criterion for a critically endangered missing person and THAT is the reason the officer utilized "83000 cameras" to locate her (likely done with a few mouseclicks). The abortion itself was not investigated or prosecuted.

Would it have been better if the officer had told the family, "I'm sorry your daughter is missing and maybe hemorrhageing in a hotel room, but since she had an abortion we are not allowed to look for her" ?

#26 | Posted by Miranda7 at 2025-06-20 10:09 PM | Reply

the officer utilized "83000 cameras" to locate her (likely done with a few mouseclicks)

That's mildly disturbing.

#27 | Posted by REDIAL at 2025-06-20 10:28 PM | Reply

Yes, the surveillance state is disturbing, as is the false premise of the story, that officers used that technology to "hunt an abortion seeker", rather than the fact that they used the technology to locate an endangered missing person.

I don't like the dystopia reality of AI, but if my daughter was missing and possibly in medical distress, I wouldn't turn it down. It is a slippery slope for sure.

#28 | Posted by Miranda7 at 2025-06-20 10:42 PM | Reply

I don't like the dystopia reality of AI, but if my daughter was missing and possibly in medical distress, I wouldn't turn it down. It is a slippery slope for sure.

#29 | Posted by Miranda7 at 2025-06-20 10:43 PM | Reply

as is the false premise of the story, that officers used that technology to "hunt an abortion seeker"

That probably arose from "had abortion, search for female" in the "reason" box for the search.

#30 | Posted by REDIAL at 2025-06-20 10:49 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

Yes, the surveillance state is disturbing, as is the false premise of the story, that officers used that technology to "hunt an abortion seeker", rather than the fact that they used the technology to locate an endangered missing person.
I don't like the dystopia reality of AI, but if my daughter was missing and possibly in medical distress, I wouldn't turn it down. It is a slippery slope for sure.
#29 | Posted by Miranda7 at 2025-06-20 10:43 PM

Allegedly her family called the police, risking that she would be arrested.

Maybe a reason she didn't contact them..

I wonder if she will face prosecution eventually? We don't even know her age, let alone her reasons for not communicating.

#31 | Posted by redlightrobot at 2025-06-21 12:17 AM | Reply

Arrested for what? She has not committed a crime. The Texas law is onerous, but it targets abortion providers, not abortion recipients. She need not fear prosecution.

This is the reason I hate articles like this, the misinformation promotes fear and can literally CAUSE a woman in this predicament to fear she is being "hunted" and avoid getting medical help when things go awry.

I agree, we don't know her reasons for not contacting her family. She is an adult and entitled to that privacy. When missing adults are located safe by law enforcement, their whereabouts and circumstances are not revealed to their families or the public without their consent. That is what apparently occurred here.

#32 | Posted by Miranda7 at 2025-06-21 01:12 AM | Reply

"had an abortion, search for female"

#33 | Posted by hamburglar at 2025-06-21 07:05 AM | Reply

Putting paramount other people's business.

#34 | Posted by fresno500 at 2025-06-21 12:12 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

drudge.com

#35 | Posted by billy_boy at 2025-06-21 07:37 PM | Reply

Already posted.

Same bs from the same Rtards.

#36 | Posted by billy_boy at 2025-06-21 07:38 PM | Reply

Y'all got no short term memory.

#37 | Posted by billy_boy at 2025-06-21 07:40 PM | Reply

Come on GalaxiePete

This is old news - I should know because I posted it.

#38 | Posted by billy_boy at 2025-06-21 07:43 PM | Reply