A Georgia police chief allegedly used a network of license-plate-reading cameras to keep tabs on his ex-girlfriend for months, searching for her car’s tag roughly 600 times, according to a website that tracks public police search logs. The woman, Marci Bakely, 50, said she began noticing that her ex always seemed to know where she had been, even though he worked 15 miles from her home.
The man, Michael Steffman, was the police chief of Braselton, a small town in the Atlanta suburbs. He was arrested in November on charges of stalking, harassment, and license-plate-reader misuse, The Washington Post reported. Before his case could go to trial, he was found dead in his home in April from what officials said was a suicide.
Steffman had access to Flock, a company whose AI-powered cameras scan and record license plates on roads across the country. Police departments use the system to investigate crimes, but The Post found that Steffman used it to monitor Bakely’s daily movements without her knowledge.
The searches happened at all hours, including late at night
Bakely said that she felt like she was constantly being watched. She said she installed three cameras around her home and patio to check if her ex was staking out her street. She also said she bought a hidden-camera detector and, three separate times, took her Kia to a mechanic to check for hidden trackers.
According to Have I Been Flocked, a website that compiles police search logs obtained through public records, Steffman searched for Bakely’s license plate and her teenage daughter’s plate around 600 times. On July 29, 2024, he searched for Bakely’s plate 21 times in a single day, including 17 times between 5 and 6 p.m. Many of his searches were made between midnight and 4 a.m.
On July 31, 2024, Bakely confronted Steffman by text after he seemed to know she had gone to Cleveland without telling him. When she asked how he knew, he told her he had used a “Flock camera.” Bakely said she had no idea what that meant at the time. He wrote to her, “I was in a spiral that day. I won’t ever look again.”
Despite that message, Steffman kept searching for her plate. Over the next seven months, he searched for it more than 500 additional times, according to the audit logs. Bakely said she only learned the full extent of the tracking months later, after hearing about the Have I Been Flocked website on local news and looking up her own search history. Newer license-plate systems have also started pairing plate scans with data from nearby devices, a development covered in a report on tracking phones, wearables, and even pets.
In August 2025, Bakely filed for a restraining order against Steffman, stating that he used “the traffic (Flock) cameras to track my location.” A judge denied the request, saying Steffman’s conduct was “concerning” but that Bakely did not have evidence to support ongoing allegations of stalking. The judge suggested she file a complaint with the local sheriff’s office, which then referred the case to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Three months later, GBI agents arrested Steffman. Bureau officials said their investigation found he had misused the license-plate system “to harass and stalk multiple individuals.” The searches targeting Bakely’s plate stopped in August 2025, according to the logs later made public.
Braselton’s current town manager declined to comment. A previous town manager said in a statement that the town was “disappointed by the circumstances and the charges.” The town’s new police chief and four of Steffman’s family members did not respond to requests for comment. Calls, emails, and text messages sent to family members were also not returned, and court records do not list an attorney for Steffman.
Five days before the GBI announced his arrest, Braselton’s Facebook page had posted a photo of Steffman with the mayor and town council celebrating his 20 years of service, calling his “leadership and commitment” a factor that helped “strengthen the safety of our community.”
Bakely’s case is one of dozens was reportedly identified involving law-enforcement officers accused of misusing license-plate-reader technology, including systems made by Flock, to track women without their consent. The report said it reviewed police and court records identifying at least 50 officers charged or accused of such misuse nationwide, with Flock’s system involved in 46 of those cases.
The growing backlash against these camera networks has also led to acts of protest, including one incident where a man was accused of removing a roadside camera and argued the devices were unconstitutional.
Flock’s chief executive, Garrett Langley, told The Post that misuse of the company’s technology is inevitable given the large number of users, but that the company is focused on giving police departments tools to catch it after it happens. “We’re not going to change humans, and humans make bad decisions,” Langley said. “What we can do is make sure that they know if you use this tool, you will be held accountable.”
Published: Aug 3, 2026 04:30 pm