A now-former Savannah police officer, Amber Harpe, gave her husband, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, access to the police department's Flock license plate reader system, which he used to conduct hundreds of searches tied to ICE investigations, according to newly obtained documents reviewed by WJCL 22 News.
The records show Harpe's husband did not have his own Flock account through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Harpe acknowledged giving him her Savannah Police Department username and password. Her husband told investigators he used the account to locate ICE targets who had active arrest warrants, and he denied using the system for personal reasons.
The Savannah Police Department fired Harpe after concluding that she knowingly gave an unauthorized person access to a sensitive police system, violated department policy and compromised safeguards designed to track who was using law enforcement data. An internal audit flagged 983 search entries between January and July 2026, involving 97 identifiable license plates from six states. South Carolina plates accounted for most of the activity, with 48 plates generating 788 searches. Department documents noted that most registered vehicle owners identified in the audit were Hispanic.
During a July 27 administrative interview, Harpe said she did not recognize many of the names connected to the searches and that her husband performed most of them. In an Aug. 3 interview, her husband, identified in audio as federal ICE agent Tyler Harpe, said ICE had developed "target packages" for the people he searched. He estimated he used the account for about four months and acknowledged that using another officer's account could violate policy. The final report concluded that both parties provided credentials and access improperly.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing