Roscoe D. Cooper III is the chair of the Henrico County Board of Supervisors in Virginia and the supervisor for its Fairfield Magisterial District. He was elected to the board in November 2023 after serving on the Henrico County School Board from 2016 to 2023, and he is the pastor of Rising Mount Zion Baptist Church. He earned a bachelor's degree and a Master of Divinity from Virginia Union University, and a Doctor of Divinity from Richmond Virginia Seminary.
Case
Networked automated license-plate cameras can assemble searchable records of vehicle movements. Candidates and officials disagree over whether to ban the systems, keep them with limits, or defend them as investigative tools. This tracker separates outright bans from narrower restrictions.
Role at the time: Chair of the Henrico County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Statement summary
Henrico County Board of Supervisors Chair Roscoe D. Cooper III said in a county release that residents have raised concerns about Flock Safety and whether the data it collects is sufficiently safeguarded. He said the county is confident Henrico Police used the data appropriately but cannot ignore the potential for misuse of system data by others, and that ending the contract is the right thing to do.
“While we are confident that Henrico Police has used ALPR data appropriately for legitimate law-enforcement purposes only, we cannot ignore the potential for misuse of system data by others. Ending this contract is the right thing to do for our residents and community.”
The reference point is whether networked license-plate reader systems such as Flock should exist and be used. Cooper backs ending Henrico's contract with Flock because of privacy concerns and the potential for misuse of system data by others, while saying the county is confident Henrico Police used the data appropriately for legitimate law-enforcement purposes. The release says officials will review other options for keeping the division effective, and no replacement license-plate system is chosen. He rejects this vendor's contract without rejecting license-plate readers as a whole, which fits Mixed or conditional, placed at Ban on the remedy ladder. The closest competing label is Condemned, which would fit if he had called license-plate readers themselves a harm; his stated concern is whether Flock's data is safeguarded.
Statement dates: October 6, 2026
Statement dates: October 6, 2026
Statement dates: October 6, 2026
