Kevin Steinmeyer, a 25-year veteran of the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office, looked up same license plate in the Flock Safety database 247 times between April 2024 and May 2025.
Daniel Peavey, a former BCSO deputy, looked up the same license plate in the Flock Safety database 159 times between March 2024 and February 2025.
This information is all part of USA Today’s “Flock Safety Records Search” public database. This database is what led to Steinmeyer and Peavey’s arrest.
USA Today previously filed a series of open records requests with the BCSO, according to Sheriff Bill Massee. The Sheriff’s Office then launched its own investigation, which led to the arrests.
Steinmeyer, 49, and Peavey, 28, were each was charged with one count of misuse of captured license plate data, a misdemeanor, and one count of violation of oath by a public officer, a felony.
During the recent wave of Flockrelated arrests around Georgia, many of the law enforcement officers were not charged with violation of oath. In this instance, according to Massee, the District Attorney’s Office recommended bringing forth the charge, and the Sheriff’s Office agreed.
“It’s absolutely a violation of oath,” Massee said.
Steinmeyer was fired in short order, while Peavey was working for the Twiggs County Sheriff’s Office at the time of his arrest. Peavey was listed with a Toomsboro address.
The previous two years were basically the wild west of law enforcement Flock searches. More recently, many law enforcement agencies, including the BCSO, have implemented new policies. “Only supervisors” are now allowed to access the Flock database, according to Massee.
“We’re doing weekly audits (of Flock searches),” he added. “I can definitely say there are way more safeguards in place.”
This is reflected in the USA Today data.
In July 2026, the most recent month available, the BCSO conducted 94 “searches” compared to 2,967 in July 2025.
The database is eye opening. For example, one employee of the Perry Police Department searched the same license plate number 4,018 times, while an employee of the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office ran the same search 5,556 times.
The USA Today database is easy to find by typing “USA Today Flock search” into a Google search bar and clicking on the first result. Specific license plate numbers can be entered.