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NEW BEDFORD — The Police Department found two officers abused the Flock system to track their ex-romantic or current romantic partners, according to findings released on Thursday. The department referred the cases to the Bristol County District Attorney’s office for possible criminal charges.
Police Chief Jason Thody is recommending the termination of Detective Emily Pacheco, who has been on leave since last month, and Sgt. James Marinelli. As they are union members, they will get a hearing as part of the process.
The department was not conducting audits of officers’ use until July, The Light confirmed.
“A typical audit would be pull X number of random searches on a given month and make sure they’re legitimate,” Police Chief Jason Thody said.
“And that was not happening?” The Light asked.
“No, it was more of a supervisory review,” Thody said, adding he thinks the policy needs to be stronger.
The department found the misuse by Pacheco and Marinelli by using Flock’s new audit assistance feature, which flags anomalies and which was rolled out this year.
The department’s existing policy states that Flock audits “should be conducted on a regular basis,” though it doesn’t define “regular” or specify who is responsible for doing it.
Thody said monthly audits will now be required.
The Light in July filed a request for all audit records, but the city this week said it was withholding records because the department is “in the process of conducting and completing the internal audits that are the subject of your request.” The Light asked for audits dating to 2025.
According to recommendations of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, New Bedford’s Flock policy with regards to auditing is not sufficient.
Executive Director Michael Bradley, a retired police chief, said departments should be auditing quarterly at a minimum. In an early July interview with The Light, Thody said he thought audits were happening biannually, or twice a year, but that he would have to check with Capt. Justin Kagan, who he said was in charge of it.
Bradley said the policy should also specify who, by name or title, will be conducting the audits. The New Bedford policy does not do that. Further, it does not seem to mandate auditing, with the one line stating audits “should” (not shall or must) be conducted.
Michael Soyfer, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, said the policy reads more like “window dressing”: “If a department were really interested in doing robust oversight and protecting peoples’ privacy and ferreting out abusive searches, they would be doing audits regularly … I would say at least once per month.”
Soyfer believes a warrant should be required to search. In New Bedford and most departments, officers don’t need reasonable suspicion or probable cause to search.
However, Thody said reasonable suspicion will be required going forward for searches.
“How can you tell [misuse] if all you’re requiring officers to enter is investigation or letting them choose from a drop-down menu in the privacy of a police car with no one having to approve their search?” Soyfer said. “The bottom line is, you can’t.”
In the case of Marinelli, he entered seemingly legitimate reasons — trespass, hit and run, disorderly conduct, and welfare check — for searches into a woman he was dating. He was also found by internal investigators to have searched the plates of the ex of his romantic partner.
The Light inquired with the department about Marinelli on Aug. 12, but the department declined to comment. Records show the department opened the case into him on Aug. 5. He invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and declined to provide a statement as part of the investigation.
As the Police Department conducts an audit of use going back almost two years to when New Bedford quietly adopted the system, The Light reviewed data from January 2025 through June 2026.
The city redacted some of the data it provided to The Light, though neither the city solicitor’s office nor the Police Department would answer questions on what columns were withheld (for example, license plate and search filter) and whether case numbers were redacted.
According to the columns of Flock data provided by Westport Police Department, it seems New Bedford redacted the following columns: filter (officers can search by state or car model); license plate; and “case #”.
Because the city redacted the “case #” column, it is challenging to independently review how frequently (or infrequently) officers were complying with department policy, which states searches should be memorialized by a “case number, call for service, or report number in ‘search reason’ field.”
However, in reviewing unredacted network data from the Salem Police Department (which shows how outside agencies searched the system), The Light found some New Bedford officers in 2025 consistently did not enter a case number in the reason field or “case #” field. Other officers did so more consistently, or sometimes entered the case number in the search reason field.
Some officers vaguely entered “investigation” or an abbreviation (like “inv” or “investigate”). Some officers entered single characters, including “s,” “f,” “3,” and “m” – terms that don’t sufficiently explain a law enforcement reason for the search.
The Light previously highlighted Pacheco frequently entered “traffic infraction” as the reason for her search. The internal affairs report the department released on Thursday confirmed many of these “traffic infraction” searches were used for non-law enforcement purposes.
Thody said Pacheco also misused other department systems to pull information on people, and that her explanation of a “drug investigation,” which she testified about in court last month for a restraining order, did not bear out.
“Officer Pacheco provided an elaborate account of a narcotics-related investigation that she claimed was the reason for the searches,” Thody said. “The investigation did not find this information to be credible.”
| Policy (dated February 2025) | In practice |
| The system should be audited on a regular basis. | The Police Department was not conducting audits. |
| It is a violation of this policy to use the Flock system for any personal purpose. | Two officers have been confirmed to have abused Flock to track romantic partners or exes. |
| Department personnel may only access and use the system for official and legitimate law enforcement purposes, memorialized by a case number, call for service, or report number in “search reason” field. | Officers sometimes did not include a corresponding case or call number in most of the searches, according to data provided by the city. (The city would not answer questions as to whether it redacted case numbers from the provided data.) Some officers did not enter specifics in the search reason field. Some officers entered single characters, including “s,” “f,” “3,” and “m.” |
Reports from across the country show police departments were not auditing use by officers. In some cases, departments only learned about misuse after reporters inquired.
“My biggest concern is that many departments just don’t run these audits at all,” said Soyfer. “In Norfolk for instance, we found out in discovery that they didn’t even download their audit data until we asked for it.” (Institute for Justice represented residents and sued Norfolk over Flock, alleging Fourth Amendment violations.)
As of this week, more than 25 municipalities in Massachusetts have canceled, chosen not to renew, or suspended their use of the system, according to tracking by the ACLU of Massachusetts. Dartmouth and Acushnet are among those departments.
New Bedford officials are seemingly intent on continuing use of the system. They’ve issued a request for community feedback, and will be convening a working group including business owners and residents. They say they are building guardrails and issuing recommendations to the City Council that will “balance” public safety interests and privacy concerns.
The City Council is set to meet early next week to discuss the drafting of an ordinance regulating the city’s use of Flock and other surveillance technology, and possibly contemplate barring the system in the city.
The Police Department is seeking feedback at shareyourthoughts@newbedfordpd.com or www.surveymonkey.com/r/WSVZP5L.
This is a developing story.
Email Anastasia E. Lennon at alennon@newbedfordlight.org.
