A Colorado man says he keeps getting pulled over because automated license plate cameras are telling police his truck is tied to an active warrant, even though police agree he is not wanted.
Next 9NEWS reporter Spencer Soicher reported that Kyle Dausman was stopped by Cherry Hills Village police after a Flock automated license plate reader flagged his vehicle as being connected to a warrant. A few days later, Dausman said it happened again, even with one of the same officers.
“There was no crime committed,” Dausman told Soicher. “No, I don’t have a warrant.”
Attorney and podcaster Steve Lehto later discussed the case on Lehto’s Law, saying the situation shows a troubling side of a growing surveillance system where bad information can follow an innocent person from camera to camera.
“This is not entirely Flock’s fault,” Lehto said, “but this shows you that something like this can have ramifications we hadn’t really thought about.”
A Traffic Stop For A Warrant That Wasn’t His
Soicher reported that Dausman was driving through Cherry Hills Village when police pulled him over because a Flock camera alerted officers that his license plate was associated with an active warrant.
Dausman’s dash camera captured part of the second stop.
“I was driving through here yesterday and I got pulled over again,” Dausman told the officer.
The officer appeared to recognize him.
“We got you last week for the warrant,” the officer said, before telling Dausman he remembered him.
That moment is almost absurd, but it is also unsettling. Being stopped once because of an error is frustrating. Being stopped again, by someone who already knows the error exists, starts to feel like being trapped inside a system that nobody can fully control.
Dausman told Soicher the repeated stops have affected how he uses his truck.
“I continually get pulled over,” Dausman said. “I can’t really use my truck in any fashion.”
He also said he believes his safety is at risk because officers “zipped out of nowhere” and immediately got behind him with lights flashing.
Police Say The Camera Did What It Was Told To Do
Cherry Hills Village Police Chief Jason Lyons told Soicher that the Flock cameras did alert officers to Dausman’s plate being associated with a warrant.
“The Flock cameras did alert to his license plate being associated to a warrant,” Lyons said.
He also said his officers responded appropriately to the alert. But he made clear that Dausman himself does not have a warrant.
“Nobody should be stopped when there’s no legitimate law enforcement purpose for that,” Lyons said.
That is the key problem. The officers may have been responding to the information they were given, and the camera may have been doing what it was programmed to do. But the information was wrong, and the wrong person was the one paying the price.
Lehto made a similar point in his commentary. He said the Flock cameras were not inventing the warrant, but they were spreading the effect of the bad data.
In the old days, Lehto said, a person’s plate might not be checked unless an officer happened to run it. Now, license plates can be scanned constantly as drivers move through public roads.
“Now, your plate’s being run all the time,” Lehto said.
That changes the scale of a mistake. A single bad entry in a database can become a statewide problem.
A Zero, An O, And A System-Wide Mess
Soicher reported that the issue may trace back to confusion involving a zero and the letter O on Colorado license plates.
Lyons said Colorado license plates can include both, and data entry sometimes accounts for both versions.
“In Colorado data entry, we use both zeros and O’s in license plates,” Lyons said. “Sometimes the data entry will be for both.”
According to Lyons, the warrant returned hits when Dausman’s plate was searched either way. He said the plate had been entered for both the O version and the zero version.
Lehto found that part especially troubling. He said entering both versions suggests officials already know the O-and-zero problem exists.
“The fact that they use both the letter O and the numeral zero, and the fact that they entered it both ways in their system, implies that they know they’ve got a problem,” Lehto said.
That is a fair criticism. If a system cannot reliably tell the difference between two characters on a license plate, then the burden should not fall on a random driver to prove he is not the wanted person.
It also raises a simple question: why is the vehicle description not enough to stop the mistake? Lehto wondered whether Dausman’s truck is even the same make, model, or color as the wanted person’s vehicle.
If the plate is similar but the vehicle is clearly different, that should matter before someone is stopped.
Dausman Says He Cannot Get Himself Removed
Dausman told Soicher he tried to fix the problem by contacting Gilpin County courts and the sheriff’s office.
But he said he was told he needed to provide the name of the suspect tied to the warrant. That is information no one would give him because it is connected to an ongoing case.
“If I can’t get that name, they apparently aren’t going to be able to help me in any way,” Dausman said. “I still don’t have the name of the suspect.”
That is the part of the story that feels most Kafkaesque. Dausman is being stopped because the system thinks his plate is connected to someone else. But to clear himself, he is being told he needs information about that other person, which he cannot access.
“All I know is I’m in the system now,” Dausman told Soicher. “And there’s really no easy way to get out of the system once you’re in it.”
Lehto said that line captures the danger of large automated enforcement networks. Once a person is flagged, the mistake can follow them even when everyone nearby realizes they are innocent.
Cherry Hills Village police have now suppressed the alert within their own system, Soicher reported. But Lyons said his department cannot remove Dausman from the wider hot list.
“We stopped him twice now,” Lyons said. “We know that he’s not the person that we’re looking for associated to that warrant. I can’t speak to what other agencies might do when they get that same alert.”
That means one department may stop pulling Dausman over, while another department somewhere else may still see the same alert and respond all over again.
Agencies Point To Each Other
Soicher reported that the Gilpin County Sheriff’s Office initially said it had no connection to the warrant and that it involved Colorado State Patrol. Gilpin County said it had reached out to the court and CSP to get the problem fixed.
But according to Soicher’s reporting, Colorado State Patrol later reached a different conclusion.
A CSP spokesperson said a man had been pulled over for a crime and later failed to appear in court in Gilpin County. When that happened, Gilpin County issued the failure-to-appear warrant. At some point, a court clerk provided incorrect plate information to the Colorado Crime Information Center, which supplied the information used on the Flock hot list.
CSP said that because Gilpin County issued the warrant, only Gilpin County can fix it.
Lehto broke down the confusion by explaining that a state case can still end up in county court. So the state may say the county put the warrant into the system, while the county may point back to the state because the original case involved state patrol.
“And so as it is right now, no one is saying we can fix this,” Lehto said.
That is not good enough. When government systems create a false law enforcement alert on an innocent person, there should be a clear path to correct it. The answer cannot be an endless loop of agencies explaining why someone else has to act first.
The Safety Concern Is Real
Dausman told Soicher he worries about what could happen during the next stop, especially if his family is in the vehicle.
“I don’t know if I’m going to be pulled over with my family,” he said. “I don’t know what this guy did to get a warrant. I don’t really know what the police response is gonna be.”
That fear makes sense. Police stops tied to warrants can be unpredictable because officers do not know who they are dealing with or what the warrant is for until they investigate further.
If the warrant were for something minor, maybe the stop would stay calm. If the alert suggested something serious, the police response could be more intense.
Dausman does not know. That uncertainty is the point.
Lehto said if he were in Dausman’s position, he might print out the 9NEWS story and keep it in the truck to show officers during future stops. That suggestion sounds almost funny, but it also shows how backward the situation has become.
An innocent man should not need to carry news coverage of his own mistaken identity problem just to drive around safely.
A Bigger Warning About Surveillance
Soicher’s report opened by calling the case “a little glimpse into the dystopian future,” and it is hard to ignore that feeling.
Flock cameras and other automated license plate readers are spreading across cities and towns. Supporters say they help police find stolen cars, wanted suspects, and vehicles connected to crimes. Critics worry they create a surveillance network that tracks ordinary people as they move through public life.
This case lands right in the middle of that debate.
The camera did not create the bad warrant entry. But once the bad entry existed, the camera system made it active everywhere. Dausman’s truck became a rolling alert, even though he had done nothing wrong.
Lehto said he does not like the idea of cameras being everywhere, mostly because he wants to be able to go out in public without being recorded or photographed constantly.
That concern is not paranoia anymore. It is now a practical question about what happens when the data is wrong.
No Easy Way Out
For now, Dausman has been removed from Cherry Hills Village’s Flock hot list, but not necessarily from the broader system.
That means the next alert may still happen somewhere else.
Soicher reported that Gilpin County, the courts, and Colorado State Patrol have all been involved in trying to figure out who can correct the mistake. But Dausman is still the one living with the risk each time he drives.
Lehto said the story feels “very Big Brother-ish,” even though the cameras are technically doing what they were designed to do.
That may be the most important lesson here. Automated systems do not need to be malicious to cause harm. They only need bad data, unclear responsibility, and no fast way for an innocent person to fix the error.
Dausman’s case shows how a small mistake, possibly one wrong character on a license plate, can grow into repeated police stops and real fear.
The question now is not only who fixes his plate.
It is whether these systems are being built with enough concern for what happens when they get it wrong.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, John developed a love for the great outdoors early on. With years of experience as a wilderness guide, he’s navigated rugged terrains and unpredictable weather patterns. John is also an avid hunter and fisherman who believes in sustainable living. His focus on practical survival skills, from building shelters to purifying water, reflects his passion for preparedness. When he’s not out in the wild, you can find him sharing his knowledge through writing, hoping to inspire others to embrace self-reliance.
