loading . . . When a Columbine Valley police officer showed up at Chrisanna Elser’s home in Denver, he was certain he had caught a thief.
Sgt. Jamie Milliman knocked on the door, summons in hand, and accused Elser of stealing a package from the doorstep in the neighboring town of Bow Mar, only 50 feet south.
The proof, according to Milliman: Footage from Flock surveillance cameras showing Elser’s forest green Rivian driving through the town from 11:52 a.m. to 12:09 p.m. on the day of the theft.
“You know we have cameras in that town. You can’t get a breath of fresh air in or out of that place without us knowing,” Milliman said to Elser, according to Ring doorbell footage of the Sept. 27 encounter viewed by The Colorado Sun.
“Just as an example, you’ve driven there about 20 times in the last month,” he added.
Along with the Flock footage, the sergeant told Elser he also had a video from the theft victim that allegedly showed Elser ringing the doorbell before grabbing a package and running away.
“I guess this is a shock to you, but I am telling you, this is a lock. One hundred percent. No doubt,” Milliman said.
But Elser, a financial advisor, told the sergeant she had no idea what he was talking about. She asked several times to watch the video that Milliman insisted proved her guilt, but he refused to show her. And when Elser offered up footage from her Rivian’s onboard cameras to prove her innocence, Milliman said she could bring it to court.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll be giving this all to you. If you are going to deny it to me, I am not going to help you with any courtesy,” Milliman said.
“It’s kind of funny because we have cameras on our truck, so we could show you exactly where we were,” Elser said.
Bow Mar, a small suburb northwest of Littleton, is one of several Colorado towns that have contracts with Flock, a company that operates artificial intelligence-powered license-plate readers to track vehicles as they pass through town. Columbine Valley police oversee both towns of Columbine Valley and Bow Mar.
Police have touted the cameras’ effectiveness in catching criminals and have called the technology that allows law enforcement to see where, and when a vehicle was at a certain point in time a “game changer” for investigations. With more than 8,000 cameras across the U.S., the system has become one of cops’ go-to surveillance tools.
But as the network grows, so do the concerns over mass surveillance. Civil liberties advocates argue the dragnet surveillance infrastructure threatens privacy and is prone to abuse by law enforcement and federal agencies.
Last week, hundreds of Denverites objected to Denver’s use of Flock cameras at a town hall meeting after the city quietly extended its contract with Flock Safety. The new contract came with safeguards to prevent the network from being accessed by federal agents or law enforcement from other jurisdictions.
Standing on her doorstep, Milliman described what Elser was wearing that day, certain Elser was the one who stole the package that was valued at $25 or less.
“I’m sorry, but it is true. I don’t make these things up,” Milliman said, before handing her the summons with a December court date.
## ‘There’s got to be something that’s tracking me’
The allegation left Elser rattled. For days, she collected evidence to try to corroborate her whereabouts Sept. 22.
Faced with a high-tech accusation, she turned to a different form of electronic surveillance to prove her innocence — apps on her phone and in her vehicle that were also recording what she was doing that day.
“I didn’t do a lot of sleeping the first couple of nights,” Elser said in an interview with The Colorado Sun.
She and her husband compiled a master file with snapshots from her Google Timeline, a tool on her phone that can track each stop she makes, and statements from the people she interacted with that day. She took a picture of the outfit she wore, a light pink top, black pants and an olive-green fleece, with a note of when she took off her sweater because it started to get warm outside.
She had, in fact, driven to Bow Mar that day, but it was to visit her tailor, more than a quarter-mile from where the package was stolen, for a noon appointment. She collected surveillance images from the tailor of her entering and leaving the building.
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She also included the dashboard videos that her Rivian, an electric truck, automatically recorded. The video shows her making two trips through Bow Mar without stopping. She also gathered the truck’s GPS records.
“So as I was collecting evidence, I just was spending night and day trying to go over in my head — there’s got to be something that’s tracking me and it’s got to be something that’s watching me,” Elser said.
She later watched footage from the victim’s doorbell camera, which was posted on NextDoor, showing the package thief.
“The person’s running away, but they’re not even getting into a truck,” Elser said.
She called the police chief every day for a week straight and several other administrators, looking to present her evidence, she said. She feared the impact a theft charge, though small, would have on her financial career.
“I work for a financial institution. They don’t exactly enjoy the word theft,” Elser said. “So I wanted to nip it in the bud because I do have friends. I do have people that we work with and would know me and my career.”
But she wasn’t getting anywhere. On Oct. 11, she sent a letter, with her trove of evidence, to the police chief.
Then on Oct. 15, more than two weeks after Milliman showed up at her door, she got an email from Chief Bret Cottrell, congratulating her on her detective work and announcing that Columbine police had dismissed the charges against her.
“After reviewing the evidence you have provided (nicely done btw), we have voided the summons we issued,” Cottrell wrote to Elser in an email.
But the dropped ticket did not end Elser’s concerns. The sergeant’s false claim raised deeper questions about how Columbine Valley police are using Flock cameras and at what cost to privacy.
“We had to basically exonerate ourselves,” she said. She never received an explanation from anyone at the department or an apology.
Elser knew the town of Bow Mar used Flock cameras — it’s hard to miss the big sign below a camera near her house that reads: “You’re under surveillance.”
“We thought nothing of it, as common surveillance, that’s great,” Elser said of the cameras. “You’re watching for crime — not to wrongly accuse somebody.”
Cottrell declined to comment on the case Tuesday morning, citing the active investigation into the theft, but said the department uses Flock cameras to identify “stolen vehicles, stolen license plates,” “any wanted subjects that enter town” or “follow-up investigations.”
“We can’t see people inside the car. We follow up investigations — if we have a crime, we’ll go back and look at the cameras and see who was in the town at the time of the crime,” Cottrell said.
Cottrell would not answer whether the sergeant’s use of the Flock surveillance violated Columbine Valley Police Department’s policies or contract with Flock.
Milliman did not respond to an email.
“It’s fortunate that we have our own footage to fight back something like this,” Elser said.
“It’s a little upsetting that everyone knows that the answer to be, you are innocent until proven guilty. It seemed to be the other way around that it was guilty until you prove yourself innocent.”
#### Type of Story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. https://coloradosun.com/2025/10/28/flock-camera-police-colorado-columbine-valley/
