Axon's $15 million renewal included 36 AI cameras nobody ordered. Police departments said review first.

A renewal arrived with 36 cameras nobody ordered

Chattanooga's City Council approved an Axon package worth up to $15 million over five years on 22 September, on one condition: another council review before the city can accept or deploy 36 license plate readers that no city department requested↗ ¹. "I think we need to pump the brakes a little bit on these," said Councilman Cody Harvey, the only no vote ¹⁴.

The police department asked for body cameras, Tasers, interview-room hardware and an AI translation assistant. Axon's $2.6 million-a-year proposal also added counter-drone software and 300 streaming licenses to run its AI on existing city cameras, software Axon says can identify people by clothing size or color and cars by color or bumper sticker ¹. The contract this package renews expires 30 September ¹.

Covington rewrote the deal clause by clause

In Covington, Kentucky, residents forced a rewrite before the board would pass its Axon contract this month↗: ten years cut to one with nine annual renewals, squad-car plate readers removed, pole-mounted readers banned under city jurisdiction, usage reports every 30 days, AI-drafted report language preserved in the public record, and an opt-out on letting Axon train its AI models on city data ⁶. This week residents were still chasing the amended text itself; the city manager's answer was to file an open records request ⁶.

The decade deals kept coming anyway

Los Angeles police commissioners voted 3-0 on 22 September to send the City Council a 10-year, $235 million Axon contract↗ that adds Draft One, which writes a first draft of officer reports from body-camera audio, plus a free three-month pilot of Axon plate readers on city streetlights, in a deal running to July 2036 ²³. The department says the city keeps sole ownership of the data and the cameras cannot identify individuals; it dropped Flock in July over data ownership ².

Auburn, New York renewed at $999,999.60 over five years↗, about $196,197 a year, in the same budget season as an 8 percent tax hike and a first step toward terminating Flock ⁵. Durango, Colorado moves its plate reader program from Flock to Axon in 2027, Antioch, California has approved 55 fixed Axon reader locations, and an August tally by 404 Media counted seven more communities swapping Flock for Axon↗ ⁷. So far, the privacy backlash has not shrunk the surveillance market; it has re-badged it.

The meter now sits with the council dais

Hays County, Texas went furthest, voting 3-2 on 15 September to strip a placeholder for a 10-year, $4.5 million Axon AI contract↗ and spend the money on two corrections officers instead ⁸. Axon has compounded revenue at more than 30 percent a year for ten straight quarters ⁹, and the AI add-on kept appearing inside the new proposals: Draft One in Los Angeles, 300 streaming licenses in Chattanooga, AI-assisted reports in Covington.

What changed this month is that the AI add-on now clears a council vote first, priced on its own instead of riding with the Tasers and body cams. Watch the Los Angeles City Council, and watch whether Covington's one-year term gets copied.