Corrections ledger
Material corrections are appended to the affected story or evidence record and collected here. We do not silently preserve a claim after the evidence no longer supports it.
Update: West Des Moines completed the Sentinel's related public-records request on Aug. 17. The response is under review. This article's earlier absence-of-record statements have been time-bounded to its Aug. 1 publication date; this update does not characterize the production.
Corrected 2026-08-07: an earlier version's title stated that DIAL 'confirmed' Flock lacked Iowa Chapter 91C contractor registration. DIAL's April 24, 2026 correspondence states its own position; it is not a binding determination. The title now reads that DIAL 'stated' Flock lacked registration, matching the hedge already present in this entry's summary text.
Correction: until August 7, 2026, this site's timeline entry for the mayor's April 20 remark about the park camera said he 'admitted' not knowing the hardware, and described it as a 'direct admission of council ignorance.' Both went beyond the record. The mayor stated he did not know what kind of camera is in the park; that is his own statement and does not establish what the council knew as a body. The entry also gave the timestamp as a range spanning approximately 47:24 to 48:10, which merged two separate moments — the referral to the June 5 subcommittee at approximately 47:24 and the camera remark at approximately 48:10. The entry now states the remark alone at approximately 48:10, and notes that the quotation comes from a machine transcript that has not been checked word-for-word against the meeting audio.
Correction: until August 7, 2026, this entry said the 97-email batch yielded findings "including pre-vote activity, price negotiation after vote, and system operability before authorization." The last of those was wrong. This investigation's own analysis of that batch records that evidence of hotlist alerts, NCIC queries, or other operational activity before the April 3, 2023 council vote was not found in it. The entry no longer claims the batch shows pre-authorization operation, and states that the activation chronology remains unresolved.
Correction: until August 7, 2026, this entry was titled "contract price finalized after council vote" and closed by asserting the same. The email it rests on asks Flock to "work your magic on the contract price," which establishes that the price was still being negotiated after the vote — not that it was finalized then, or when it was finalized. The entry now says only what the email establishes.
Correction: until August 7, 2026, this entry said a Chapter 91C complaint was filed "for performing construction without a license," which stated the complaint's allegation as established fact. The entry records that a complaint was filed and what it alleged. Who performed the permitted right-of-way work, whether licensed subcontractors were used, and whether any exemption applied are not established.
Correction: until August 7, 2026, this entry said a July 8, 2026 portal capture "confirmed" the contractor registration "active through April 30, 2027." A capture can show a registration's status on the date it was taken and record a displayed expiration date; it cannot establish status through a future date. The entry now reports what the capture showed and states that whether the registration has since been renewed, altered, or revoked is not established.
Correction: until August 7, 2026, this entry described the first audit-log export as establishing a baseline for "mutation detection methodology." That framing presupposed a phenomenon the analysis did not find: independent re-analysis found no row-level field mutation in these exports. The entry now describes the baseline as one for longitudinal comparison.
Correction: Until August 5, 2026, this site's timeline entry for April 8, 2026 stated that West Des Moines police denied that OWL cameras exist and that a January 2022 engineering document directly contradicted that denial. That wording exceeded what the record establishes. The city's April 8, 2026 records response was a software-inventory statement — that per the Flock Safety application it has no OWL cameras — not a denial that OWL-branded hardware exists or is deployed, and the January 2022 engineering document has not been independently obtained, so its contents rest on secondary references. The entry now reflects that narrower evidence.
Correction: Until August 5, 2026, this site's timeline entry for the April–August 2024 Flock camera-pole work stated that Flock performed 16 construction projects without the required Iowa Chapter 91C contractor's license. That wording asserted more than the record establishes. The available evidence supports that the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing confirmed Flock lacked Iowa Chapter 91C contractor registration before its later registration; it does not establish who performed the permitted work, whether licensed subcontractors were used, or whether an exemption applied. The entry now reflects that narrower evidence.
Corrected 2026-08-05: an earlier version described the April 20 council testimony as presenting 'licensing violations.' The record is that licensing and registration questions were raised; the wording was corrected to reflect questions, not established violations.
Corrected 2026-08-05: an earlier version characterized the mayor's referral to the June 5 subcommittee as a 'third consecutive deflection.' The record is that, at approximately 47:24, Mayor Trimble referred the questions to the June 5 Public Safety Subcommittee following the city's April 6 response; the pattern characterization was removed as argument rather than record.
Update: After publication, human review of the city-produced 2023 agreement copy established that its West Des Moines signature block bears Police Chief Chris Scott's name and an April 1, 2023 date, while the Flock block is blank and undated. The article now states those visible facts while preserving that the date does not establish when the city signature was applied or that the agreement was fully executed before the vote.
Correction: Between June 27 and July 8, 2026, this site's timeline entries for the April 2026 council testimony described the questions as written questions submitted to the council. The questions were prepared for testimony and presented on video before the council; they were not submitted in writing. The same entry described one subject as "audit log mutations." Finding F-027 states that no row-level mutation reproduces from the raw data, and the entry now reads "audit-log integrity concerns." Both entries were corrected on July 8, 2026.