Seventeen public Flock search-audit CSVs downloaded in July 2026 came from 16 Iowa agencies; one agency's file was downloaded twice. Across those agencies, the exports used five distinct column layouts. Three agencies' exports were downloaded again on Aug. 1, 2026. [F-048]
Five layouts in the public files
The stated search-reason field varied in presence, name, position, and population. It was fully populated in the July exports for eight agencies. Other files had blank entries in that field, reaching 79.0% blank. One agency's export had no column named reason; it carried an offenseType field in its place. [F-048]
A blank cell and a missing column are different observations. The first describes a field that appears in the public file without a value on some rows; the second describes a field the public file does not expose under that name. Neither observation, on its own, establishes what an agency recorded in an internal system. [F-048]
The three Aug. 1 re-captures repeated their July column layouts exactly. These are point-in-time exports from rolling windows. They do not establish what the agencies' current exports contain. [F-048]
What three departments said
To understand what the public fields represented, the Sentinel asked departments how their systems record a search's stated reason. Ankeny, Dubuque, and Council Bluffs answered in writing. Their accounts describe different relationships between required inputs and what a public export shows. [F-049]
In a written reply, Ankeny Police Department said INVESTIGATION is its only selectable search-reason category. The department said officers must also enter an offense type for each inquiry, but that field does not appear on its public portal. [F-049]
Dubuque Police Department said its reason field is required free text preserved in the public export. The department also described a separate required incident number. This is the department's account of how its system records searches. [F-049]
Council Bluffs Police Chief said officers must select an offense type for a search, while the case-number and free-text reason fields are optional. He said an internal supervisor report shows the selected offense type as its Reason, while the public export follows a vendor-provided template. [F-049]
On the chief's account, an empty free-text reason cell in a public export would not, by itself, show that no offense type was selected internally. The Sentinel did not independently verify the supervisor report or the department's description of its internal records. [F-049]
The chief said the figures in the Sentinel's questions appeared accurate as produced by the public portal. He also said those questions prompted a departmental review and contact with Flock about presenting the public data more clearly. His reply documents the department's account of that response; it does not show that the public export or department practices later changed. [F-049]
Why the public fields matter
The three departments described different inputs behind their public data: Ankeny described one selectable category plus a required offense type, Dubuque described required free-text reason and incident-number fields, and Council Bluffs described a required offense type with optional case-number and free-text reason fields. These are their accounts of their systems, not an independent inspection of the internal records. [F-049]
What the record leaves open
The public files do not establish why the layouts differ, whether any layout violates an agency policy or Iowa recordkeeping law, or whether any search was improper. A later export could differ from these dated snapshots. [F-048]
The three departments' replies are their own descriptions. The correspondence does not independently establish what their internal records contained, whether the descriptions remain current, or whether a public export changed after the replies. [F-049]