Fired officer used Flock to find his wife, lawyer says

The Camera Files

His lawyer says he used Flock to find his wife in emergencies. Milton fired him.

We couldn’t verify his lawyer’s account, and the city didn’t answer. But the lawyer also sent the department’s written camera rules, dated July 2025. They say the record of your car passing a Milton camera is deleted after 30 days. The city keeps it 365.

Missed Part 1? Start here.

▶︎ Listen · The Camera Files Part 2, read aloud in 12 minutes Sam and Maya are AI voices. The reporting is ours. Listen on the story page

Randy Dula and his wife tried a phone app, Life360, so he would know when she was in trouble, his lawyer says. It didn’t work.

So during her diabetic emergencies, the lawyer says, the Milton police officer found her car another way: on the city’s license plate cameras, which log every car that passes them. That, the lawyer says, is why the department fired him.

“I am totally disgusted,” attorney Mitch Skandalakis wrote to The Roundabout on Wednesday. Dula, he wrote, “was terminated by the Milton PD for literally saving his wife’s life by locating her through FLOCK, who was suffering from a diabetic emergency.”

We couldn’t verify his account. Dula declined to be interviewed, and the city didn’t answer our questions about it by our deadline. It is the first statement we know of that ties the departure of either Milton officer named on USA TODAY’s list of flagged Flock users to the cameras.

The search his lawyer describes works on any car that passes Milton’s 36 cameras, including yours.

What we found Two unelected officials decided to keep your car’s record a year, the department says. One of them, the city manager, has written of the city’s “obligation to establish clear limits.” We checked the record. Officer of the Year, then terminated. Milton honored Randy Dula in May 2025 and terminated him this August, state records show. The city hasn’t announced it. Your data travels. 391 organizations, from Georgia police departments to the FBI, can search Milton’s camera data, the department’s page says.

Skandalakis sent something else, too: the department’s written rules for those cameras, dated July 2025.

They say the record of your car passing a Milton camera gets deleted after 30 days.

The city keeps it for 365. That’s more than 12 times as long as that rule allows.

Say you drove past one of the cameras on the way to Thanksgiving dinner last year. Under the written rule, that record would have been deleted by New Year’s. Under the city’s setting, it’s still there. So is every other pass since, and a year of them can show a pattern: which roads you take, and when.

We found no Council vote on keeping it a year. The mayor says he “was not briefed” and calls decisions like that “operational ones.” And Flock’s own rules say keeping data that long takes the approval of an elected official or a governing body.

Two people made the call, the department says: Police Chief Jason Griffin and City Manager Steven Krokoff, a former Milton police chief who named Griffin to the job. Neither is elected. Krokoff also decided Dula’s final appeal, the lawyer says. On Oct. 2, he declined all 44 of our questions.

The city manager’s three obligations

City Manager Steven Krokoff appears in every thread of this story, and he knows the department from the inside. He was Milton’s police chief until 2016, when the City Council made him city manager, which the city describes as its chief administrative officer. When the previous chief resigned in December 2023, Krokoff named Jason Griffin permanent chief within days.

In Part 1, we showed a $63,500 Flock purchase that went past the city manager’s $50,000 limit and never went to Council.

When he declined our questions on Oct. 2, he named three obligations. “Reports of officers misusing these systems make those questions especially important,” he wrote. “Any use for private purposes is unacceptable and damages public trust. The technology’s value does not lessen our obligation to establish clear limits, provide documented oversight, and hold people accountable. Those responsibilities are central to our review of Milton’s LPR practices.” The city, he wrote, will “share any decisions resulting from our review when they are made.”

He made the city’s case for the cameras, too. Used in “a formal, documented police investigation and response,” they “have helped save lives and solve crimes, helped the police find missing children and vulnerable adults, located people in danger, and identified suspects in violent crimes.”

Steven Krokoff’s words, and the record “Establish clear limits.” The police department’s written limit was 30 days. Krokoff and his chief authorized a year, the department says. We found no Council vote. “Provide documented oversight.” The department says a three-member team audits flagged searches. Asked who sits on it and what it has found, Krokoff declined to answer. The July 2025 policy doesn’t mention audits. “Hold people accountable.” Both officers left this summer, Dula terminated after a final appeal Krokoff decided, Dula’s lawyer says. The city announced neither departure. As of Oct. 1, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Milton hadn’t asked it to investigate. Krokoff wrote all three on Oct. 2, in the letter that declined all 44 of our questions.

Officer of the Year, then terminated

On Sept. 11, Milton’s Police Department told us in writing that it had “reviewed search activity and identified two matters that warranted further investigation as potential misuse. Both matters remain under investigation.” On Tuesday, we reported that the other Milton officer on USA TODAY’s list, Khalil Bouziane, had resigned 71 days before that statement, “while under Investigation,” in the words of his state record. An investigation can continue after an officer leaves, and being on USA TODAY’s list isn’t a finding that anyone broke a rule or the law.

Dula joined the Milton Police Department in November 2023. In May 2025, the department named him, then a detective, its Officer of the Year; the city’s announcement called him “a model of Milton Police’s vision and values.” In March 2026, the Alpharetta Lions Club named him the department’s Outstanding Officer of the Year. In May, the department gave him a ribbon for finishing a three-part leadership program.

Records kept by Georgia POST, the state agency that certifies police officers, show the department terminated him on Aug. 7, less than three months after that ribbon. That was 35 days before the department told us both matters remained open. As of Sept. 28, POST’s file on him listed no sanctions and no investigations, and POST’s records mark his separation as needing no file review. “File review required usually means the officer has a POST case,” a POST records officer told us.

The city and its police department publicized his honors three times, in two city news releases and a department Facebook post. Neither has said in a news release or on the department’s Facebook page that he, or Bouziane, left. The city’s first acknowledgment to us that Dula left came Wednesday, when its attorney called him a “former employee” in a letter declining to forward our letter to him.

What his attorney says

Skandalakis contacted us Wednesday, the day after Part 1 ran. Dula declined, through him, to be interviewed on the record. In his statement, Skandalakis wrote that Dula “served his country with distinction in the armed forces and then served his community as a police officer,” and that “had he not found her on multiple occasions when he used FLOCK, she would have died.”

He called the internal affairs process “a Kangaroo Court” and wrote: “The men and women who serve in the Milton PD need to be very aware that the department and their hierarchy Do Not Have Their Back.”

In an interview, Skandalakis said the department knew about her condition and knew her car’s plate. He said the case went to an internal affairs hearing (internal affairs is the office that investigates complaints about officers), that Dula’s wife attended but wasn’t allowed to speak, and that City Manager Steven Krokoff decided Dula’s final appeal. Dula will take his case to Superior Court with a new attorney, Skandalakis said, and the two plan a news conference Tuesday at Skandalakis’s law office. We found no court case under Dula’s name in Fulton County’s records as of Wednesday.

The department’s written rules on plate readers have said since at least 2018 that the data “may only be accessed for a legitimate law enforcement purpose.” Nothing we have says which part of its rules, if any, the department cited in firing Dula. His attorney’s word is “use.” We asked the city Wednesday afternoon about his account.

How 30 days became 365

Georgia law requires police departments that use plate readers to have written policies for them. The department’s new public web page on the cameras says so but doesn’t post the policies.

Skandalakis sent us one on Wednesday: Milton Police Department policy 500-016, “License Plate Reader Systems,” issued to all personnel and in effect July 24, 2025. It says the data “will be stored on the vendor’s secure server for up to thirty (30) days. After thirty (30) days of storage, the information collected by the LPR System will be auto-deleted.” LPR stands for license plate reader. You can read the full six-page policy.

The city hasn’t confirmed the copy. Much of its text matches, word for word, the department’s 2018 order on plate readers, which the city released in 2019. We haven’t seen the version it replaced, from November 2022.

Thirty days is also what the 2022 contract Council approved for nine cameras said. About two months after the policy’s date, the department asked to buy a year of storage; the city’s purchase order, its written promise to pay, is dated Oct. 1, 2025. We found no Council vote on keeping the data longer in the agendas and minutes Council has posted since 2021, and the mayor, Peyton Jamison, said Monday he wasn’t briefed on the move to 365 days. The department’s page now says the data is kept 365 days.

Flock’s own rules say that kind of change needs an elected official’s sign-off. Since at least April 2025, the company’s written evidence policy has said it “will offer an extended retention for up to one year, but shall require the agency to first obtain approval from an elected official and/or a governing body.” In August, Flock’s chief executive, Garrett Langley, wrote that existing customers would keep their “democratically approved retention periods.”

Milton’s mayor puts that decision with the police. In his answer to us this week, he wrote that “how long data is kept, is the kind of judgment we rely on our Chief of Police and our department to make.”

The department told us in September that Milton’s year was authorized by the police chief and the city manager. The department has also pointed to the city’s budget book, which Council adopts. Its one line on this mentions extending data retention but gives no number of days, and the version posted online carries a December 2025 date, after Council voted on the budget. It said Milton’s switch predated Flock’s August 2026 guidance, but the approval rule was already in Flock’s policy six months before Milton made the change. When we asked Flock in September how Milton’s longer storage was approved, the company didn’t respond.

In September, we asked the city in a records request for any written policy documenting how long it keeps the data. It gave us a screenshot of a Flock web page that said 365 days, not policy 500-016. A second request, for the department’s written policies on the cameras, is due Thursday. On Wednesday we asked the city whether 500-016 is still the department’s policy, whether it has changed since July 2025, and why it wasn’t produced.

How far a Milton search reaches

The department’s new public page lists 391 organizations with access to Milton’s camera data, from Georgia police departments to the FBI.

Every Flock search leaves a line in a running record called an audit log, and a search that reaches another police agency’s cameras shows up in that agency’s log too.

Two departments’ complete records show how far many Milton searches reach. Florence, Ky., and Cheshire, Conn., each released every search other agencies ran on their cameras from Oct. 1 to Nov. 29, 2025. Each shows more than 1,000 Milton searches in those 59 days, and every one of them checked more than 2,000 camera networks across the country at once, some more than 6,000. (Each agency, business or neighborhood that shares its Flock cameras counts as a network.)

On Oct. 6, 2025, nine of those Milton searches gave one word as the reason: “speeders.” The same nine appear in both departments’ records, run within nine minutes that morning. The department told us Sept. 11 that it “does not use them to enforce moving violations,” and its public page, posted this month, lists “traffic enforcement” among prohibited uses. The log says nothing more about what those nine searches were for.

These counts come from searches that reached other agencies’ cameras, and they show what was typed into Flock, not what’s in the department’s own files. We sent the department our counts of the typed reasons on Oct. 9. It hadn’t responded by our deadline, noon Wednesday. We asked the city about the “speeders” searches Wednesday afternoon.

How other departments handled it

On Tuesday we told you about Athens-Clarke County, where police fired an officer this month for using Flock to search his ex-girlfriend’s plate, named him and said what he did, with the GBI investigating.

In Franklin County, N.C., Sheriff Kevin White announced in September that an audit had caught one of his detectives using the county’s Flock system to track a private citizen. He fired her, sent the findings to the district attorney, suspended the county’s cameras while past searches are reviewed, and said all of it in a public Facebook post. “No one is above the law,” he wrote, “especially not those who are trusted to enforce it.”

Dula’s attorney describes a different kind of case: searches for his wife’s car during her medical emergencies. The city hasn’t said what either Milton case involves. Both of those departments told the public what happened. Milton’s department hasn’t announced that either officer left. It told us Sept. 18: “Because those matters remain under investigation, the Department cannot provide additional details regarding the allegations, or investigative steps.”

Who decides

Who answers to whom You elect the mayor and six council members. The mayor and Council set policy, adopt the budget, approve purchases over $50,000 and appoint the city attorney. They hire the city manager, who serves at their pleasure. The city manager runs the city day to day and supervises the department heads, including the police chief. The police chief runs the department and answers to the city manager. The city attorney, Ken Jarrard of the private firm Jarrard & Davis, advises and represents the city government.

In September we asked readers who should decide how long Milton keeps its camera data. Of the 46 who answered, 26 picked City Council, in a public vote, and 14 picked state law. Three picked the police chief and city manager. The department says those two made the decision. (It isn’t a scientific poll, just the readers who tapped.)

On Monday, Mayor Peyton Jamison answered the three questions we sent on Oct. 5 to him and each councilmember. As we promised Tuesday, here is his answer in full. No councilmember had answered those three questions by Wednesday evening.

In full Mayor Peyton Jamison’s answer His Oct. 12 email to The Roundabout, word for word Mr. Hall, thank you for reaching out. Automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology isn’t new to the City of Milton. The City installed its first ALPRs in 2011, and Council approved our first Flock branded camera in 2019. Across multiple City Councils, the policy has continued: Milton uses this technology to help protect residents. In February 2022, Council approved nine additional cameras alongside the existing one, under a 24-month agreement with 30-day data retention. I understood that vote as continuing a long standing policy, with that agreement as the next stage of the program. Since then, the program has grown to 36 cameras, and data is now retained for 365 days, within the limits of Georgia law. I was not briefed on those changes. Decisions like these are operational ones. City Council sets policy, and this policy was first established over a decade ago. How the tool is deployed day to day, including how many cameras, where they go, and how long data is kept, is the kind of judgment we rely on our Chief of Police and our department to make. I support this program because I’ve seen firsthand how effective it is. But a tool this powerful only works if residents can trust it. Every search should be logged and auditable, and anyone who misuses this system, including our own officers, should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. I have confidence in our Chief to hold the department to that standard. Peyton

Their side

Bouziane didn’t respond to the certified letter we mailed him in late September asking about the investigation and inviting his comment.

We couldn’t find contact information for Dula. On Oct. 8, we left a letter for him at the Milton Police Department and asked the department to forward it, and we repeated the request by email on Oct. 9. On Wednesday, the city’s attorney, Ken Jarrard, wrote that the city would not forward it and would return it unopened. Among his reasons, he wrote that forwarding it “could create confusion about whether the City is requesting or encouraging a response from Mr. Dula.” He also cited federal rules on private letter carriage, which he wrote “do not require the City to provide this service.” Those rules are exceptions that allow a letter to be carried without pay, which is all we asked. About an hour before his letter, Dula’s attorney had contacted us. His account is above, under “What his attorney says.”

The city didn’t respond to our Wednesday questions by our deadline, 9 p.m.

What we still don’t know

The city can answer most of these:

• →what the department found in either case, and whether it disputes Dula’s account of his searches
• →whether Bouziane’s investigation is one of the department’s camera matters
• →when the department’s review began, and whether that was before or after the two men left
• →whether either case went to prosecutors
• →what POST’s case on Bouziane concerns
• →whether the July 2025 policy is still the department’s rule, and if not, what replaced it
• →what the city’s review of its plate reader practices will change, and when it will tell you

His lawyer says Dula found his wife because the cameras had recorded her car going by. They record yours, too. The department’s policy dated July 2025 says that record is deleted after 30 days. Its public page says the city keeps it 365.

The full record is on the web. It adds the city manager's record date by date, how USA TODAY's list came out, more of the policy, the department's new camera page and more on Milton's searches. Read the full story.

How we reported this. The Roundabout has reported on Milton’s license plate cameras since Sept. 10. This story draws on records we obtained from Georgia POST and the City of Milton through open records requests; the Police Department’s Sept. 11 written answers to our questions, published in full at readroundabout.com/flock-cameras; the City Manager’s Oct. 2 letter; the mayor’s Oct. 12 answer; the city attorney’s Oct. 14 letter; USA TODAY’s published list; Flock audit logs released by 27 agencies and by Florence, Ky., and Cheshire, Conn.; answers from the GBI; a Milton Police Department policy provided by Dula’s attorney; an interview with his attorney and his written statement; and reporting by WUGA and ABC11. Dula declined to be interviewed on the record. We have filed 27 open records requests about the camera program, 17 with Milton and 10 with other agencies in Georgia, Connecticut and Kentucky, and several are still pending.

What’s next. Dula’s attorney plans a news conference Tuesday, and we’ll report what’s said there. Any answer the city sends to our Wednesday questions goes into the web story. Next in The Camera Files: the city manager’s own emails about the cameras, released under the Open Records Act. The regular Roundabout returns Sunday.

Know something we don’t? Hit reply. Every correction we have run is on our corrections page.